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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



site Jtudeitts' Mtxizs 0f gngtisTt missies, 

THE PRINCESS 

A MEDLEY 

BY L^ 

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 

EDITED BY 

HENRY W. BOYNTON, M.A. 

Instructor in English in Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 




^■-^^AiH.nil^^P^^/ 



LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



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Copyright, 1896, 
By Leach, Shewell, & Sanborn. 



C. J. Peters & Son, Ttpographebs. 
Berwick & Smith, Pbintebs. 



PREFACE. 



No poem of Tennyson's has provoked siicli extremes 
of opinion as The Princess. The present editor, after 
a somewhat prolonged study of the work, finds himself, 
as in the beginning, at neither of these extremes. It is 
his desire, therefore, that this book may afford encour- 
agement to the discriminating student, rather than to 
the zealously admiring or disparaging critic. 

The notes aim to supply only such information as 
may not be found • readily in the ordinary school ref- 
erence library. The critical comments do not profess 
to be dicta; the student .should take them simply for 
what they are — personal opinions. The starred notes, 
it is thought, may be used profitably in connection with 
a preliminary reading of the poein. As there is at this 
time no compact and easily accessible biography of Ten- 
nyson, the main facts of his life and work have been in- 
cluded in the Introduction to this volume. For further 
information, the student should be referred, if possible, 
to Arthur Waugh's Alfred, Lord Tennyson : A Study of 
His Life and Works. Valuable criticism upon Tennyson 
and The Princess may be found in Stedman's Victorian 
Poets, Van Dyke's Poetry of Tennyson, Bagehot's essay 



IV PREFACE. 

on Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning (Literary Stud- 
ies, vol. ii.), Bayne's Essays in C7'iticisni ; and in numer- 
ous magazine articles. An exhaustive chronological 
table, which contains much bibliographical matter, is a 
feature of Dr. Van Dyke's volume of criticism. 

The editor has to acknowledge indebtedness to the 
editions of Messrs. W. J. Rolfe and P. M. Wallace ; and 
to express his thanks to Mr. S. E. Dawson for aid re- 
ceived from his interesting Study of the Princess, and 
for permission to reprint Lord Tennyson's letter (Ap- 
pendix I). 

H. TV. B. 

Andover, April, 1896; 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction : ^^<^e 

The Poet 1 

The Poem 11 

The Princess 27 

Notes 157 

Appendix I ; . . . . 185 

Appendix II 190 

V 



INTRODUCTION. 



THE POET. 



Alfred Tenxyson was born on August 6th, 1809, in the 
rectory of the little Lincolnshire hamlet of Somersby. His 
father, who held this living in connection with two crther 
small parishes, was notable for his union of scholarly and 
artistic tast&s ; his mother, for her sweetness of character. 
Alfred was one of the older children in a family of twelve, 
seven of whom were boys. The three whom we associate 
most closely with him were his two elder brothers, Frederick 
and Charles, and the sister Emily who was to share his 
mourning for Hallam. Of these three it was Charles, next in 
seniority and in sympathy, who meant most to the boy in his 
early years ; it was Charles with whom he studied, and talked, 
and wrote, and rambled about the lovely Lincolnshire lanes ; 
and it was Charles who halved with him the pains and the 
profits of his first literary venture. 

The two boys began to write verse almost as soon as they 
could write anything. In his twelfth year Alfred produced 
an epic of five thousand lines or so, in imitation of Scott, who 
was then in the height of his vogue ; and at fourteen he pro- 
duced his first drama. Of infinitely more importance than his 
writing at this period, however, was his eager and intelligent 
reading. The two local schools, the village school at Holywell 
Glen and the grammar school at the neighboring town of 

1 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

Louth, seem to have left little impress on the brothers; in- 
deed, before Alfred was twelve years old his schoolboy days 
were over. It was under their own father's tuition that the 
boys got their unusually thorough grounding in the classics, 
and it was with his encouragement, undoubtedly, that they 
became familiar with so much that was good in the literature 
of their own tongue. 

In later life Tennyson had few distinct memories to record 
of these uneventful years. A vivid impression of the festivities 
which attended the coronation of George IV., a reminiscence 
of the boy Alfred's overwhelming personal grief at the news of 
Byron's death, — these are all. But we are able to picture not 
a little of the e very-day life of the brothers during this quiet 
period : how Alfred's reticence and love of solitude contrasted 
with his companion's easy cordiality and high spirits ; yet how 
much and how fondly they read and wrote together, criticising 
each other's work with friendly eagerness ; and how at last (in 
1826) their need of pocket-money was met by an obliging 
bookseller of Louth, and the Poems hy Two Brothers was timo- 
rously launched upon the world. The world paid little atten- 
tion to the slender volume, which, in fact, had little more 
merit than the average collection of boyish verse. Frederick, 
the oldest brother, in this year went up to Trinity College, 
Cambridge, and in 1828 the young poets followed him. Here 
their lack of public-school training showed itself at first in 
painful shyness ; but before the year was gone they had found 
congenial friends, and felt very much at home in Cambridge. 
Alfred, indeed, never ceased to prefer solitude to the society 
of strangers. All through life his manner was marked by a 
certain brusqueness, which seemed affectation to those who 
did not know him ; but in the eyes of his friends he was 
not less charming as a companion than as a poet. 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

The most important of Tennyson's intimates at the univer- 
sity "VNere Richard Monckton Mihies (afterward Lord Hough- 
ton), and Arthur Henry Hallam, who was to become the poet's 
closest friend. Both of these companions w^ere defeated, in a 
public competition, by Tennyson, who gained his first recog- 
nition by 'a superior sort of prize poem called Timbuctoo ; in 
w^hich, for the first time, he made successful use of the pentam- 
eter measure that later was to become his favorite vehicle of 
expression. From this time on his university life was a con- 
tinuous strain of poetic effort, whose results came before the 
public in 1830 in a little volume called Poems, .Cliiefiy Lijrical. 
Timbuctoo had been much praised in academic circles ; the 
Poems, full of a strange new glamour of music that was 
all their owai, gave him at once a national standing, and, 
with some adverse notes, won much praise, even from critics 
like Coleridge. In the same year a volume of sonnets from 
Charles Tennyson was w^ell received; Wordsworth, among 
others, even held him to be the better poet of the tW'O. In 
1831 Tennyson's father died, and the poet left Cambridge 
without taking his degree. Later in the year an engage- 
ment was made public between Arthur Hallam and Emily 
Tennyson. 

The year 1832 was marked by the publication of a second 
volume of verse, entitled simply Poems, hy Alfred Tennyson. 
' The tendency of his genius was revealed in this volume. 
The author plainly was a college man, a student of many liter- 
atures, and, though an Englishman to the core, alive to sug- 
gestions from Italian and Grecian sources. His Gothic feeling 
was manifest in the Lady of Shalott, and The Sisters ; his 
classicism in (Enone ; his idyllic method, especially, now de- 
fined itself, making the scenery of a poem enhance the central 
idea, — thought and landscape being so blended that it w^as 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

difficult to determine which suggested the other. . . . The 
Greek influence is visible in many portions 'of the volume 
of 1832, sometimes through almost literal translations of 
classical passages. (Enone, modelled upon the New-Doric 
verse [the verse of Theocritus], ranks with Lycidas as an 
Hellenic study. While this chaste and beautiful poem fasci- 
nated every reader, the wisest criticism found more of genuine 
worth in the purely English quality of those limpid pieces 
in which the melody of the lyric is wedded to the sentiment 
and picture of the idyl, — The Miller's Daughter, The May 
Queen, and Lady Clara Vere de Vere. More dewy, fresh, 
pathetic native verse has not been written since the era 
ot As You Like It, and A Winter's Tale' (Stedman). The 
advance over the former volume was unmistakable. AVhile 
the poems as a whole showed no less fire and melody, they 
showed also far more thought, a deeper insight, and more 
than a hint, here and there, of genuine dramatic power. 
This volume, however, was met by an epidemic of adverse 
criticism, not entirely unwarranted, but surely inexpedient. 
Not many years had passed since the embitterm&nt of the last 
days of Keats by like treatment at the hands of the critics. 
In Tennyson the shaft did not strike so deep, yet it had its 
inevitable effect. For ten years he kept an almost unbroken 
silence. But it was not time wasted. While the poet, at 
this time and always, shrank from unsympathetic criticism 
with a greater than any physical pain, he never failed to get 
profit from his torments. He now resolved not again to 
expose himself lightly to the harshness of his critics; but 
whatever was fair in their strictures he unhesitatingly took 
to himself. Making a companion of the disagreeable, for ten 
years he subjected himself to the most rigorous effort, the 
most searching self-criticism ; and when, at the age of thirty- 



INTRODUCTION, 5 

three, he came once more before the public eye, it was with 
the confidence of matured power. 

The following year (1833) brought into Tennyson's life 
its deepest trouble, in the shock of Arthur Hallam's early 
death ; and in the spiritual battle with grief and doubt, 
which for nearly twenty years struggled toward its fit expres- 
sion in the noble In Memoriam. It is more than possible that 
this deep experience did much to mature and dignify the 
young poet's nature. The first youthful burst of lyrical power 
was past; something different, perhaps, something greater, was 
to come : but for this Tennyson was content to wait. In 1837 
the family home at Somersby was broken up, and thereafter, 
while he was still to be found from time to time with his 
mother, or at the country-house of some friend, he lived for 
the most part, hard at work, in solitary London lodgings. 
Yet these years were not all labor, and sadness, and solitude. 
In London he had the companionship, not only of his old 
Cambridge friends, but of some of the strongest men of the 
time — such men as John Stuart ]\Iill, Landor, Thackeray, and 
Carlyle. To them he read his poems, and with them he 
passed many a comfortable evening of the bachelor sort. 
We have no picture so vivid of the poet in middle life as 
Carlyle's characteristic thumb-nail sketch : ' A great shock 
of rough, dusty-dark hair ; bright, laughing, hazel eyes ; mas- 
sive, aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate ; of sallow 
brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes, cynically 
loose, free and easy ; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is 
musically metallic — fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, 
and all that may lie between ; speech and speculation free and 
plenteous. I do not meet, in these late decades, such company 
over a pipe.' 

At last, in 1842, came the issue of the Poems by Alfred 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

Tennyson, in two volumes ; the first being mainly a reprint of 
previously published verse; the second almost entirely new. 
This time there was to be no lack of appreciation. The very 
reviews which ten years before had found little virtue in him, 
now awarded to the yet young poet a high place in English 
letters. Words of approbation came also from America; Poe 
wrote repeatedly in terms of unmeasured eulogy, Emerson in 
a more temperate strain, but still with praise. 

There were several reasons for this change of the public 
front. The 1832 poems had suffered not more from their 
faults than from their unconventionality. It was in a certain 
sense the immaturity of the critic, rather than that of the poet, 
which stood in the way of critical appreciation. But during 
the following decade, although there was no fresh publication, 
the poet was not really silent. The poems continued to be 
read. Insensibly, but steadily, they made their way against 
precedent, forming by degrees a precedent of their own. In 
1842 the volume of reprinted verse obtained almost as much 
favorable notice as the volume of later work. It is curious to 
note how closely, at this and later periods, Tennyson repre- 
sented the dominant English mood. Ilis earliest work had 
come too soon ; it was, both in matter and in form, alien from 
the taste of the hour. Henceforth he was to be widely popu- 
lar, because broadly representative. ' At the present day, were 
this volume to be lost,' says Mr. Stedman, of the 1842 issue, 
'we possibly should be deprived of a larger specific variety 
of Tennyson's most admired poems than is contained in any 
other of his successive ventures. It is an assortment of repre- 
sentative poems. To an art more restrained and natural we 
here find wedded a living soul. The poet has convictions : he 
is not a pupil, but a master, and reaches intellectual greatness. 
His verses still bewitch youths and artists by their sentiments 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

and beauty, but their thought takes hold of thinkers and men 
of the world. He has learned not only that art, when followed 
for its own sake, is alluring, but that, when used as a means 
for expressing what cannot otherwise be revealed, it becomes 
seraphic' 

Nothing of note is to be recorded of the next few years, 
except the publication of several new editions of the Poems in 
Two Volumes ; and the grant, in 1845, from Sir Robert Peel, 
then premier, of a royal pension of two hundred pounds a year. 

In 1847 appeared The Princess, the first of a series of exper- 
iments in more sustained modes of composition. ' There 
comes a time in the life of every aspiring artist, when, if he 
be a painter, he tires of painting cabinet pictures, — however 
much they satisfy his admirers ; if a j>oet, he says to himself : 
" Enough of lyrics and idyls ; let me essay a masterpiece, a sus- 
tained production, that shall bear to my former work the rela- 
tion which an opera or an oratorio bears to a composer's sonatas 
and canzonets." It may be that some feeling of this kind im- 
pelled Tennyson to wi'ite The Princess, the theme and story 
of which are both of his own invention' (Stedman). There 
is no doubt that, at the time of the publication of the poem, 
the public was well disposed toward its author. Indeed, the 
general opinion of the poet was so good that on this occasion 
too much was expected of him; the event was, of course, dis- 
appointment. Except from a few friends who were content 
to admire it as a gracefully fantastic Jeu d' esprit with a saving 
leaven of sober meaning, the poem won little commendation. 
That it found j)lenty of readers, however, is plain enough from 
the fact that in the course of the six succeeding years it ran 
through five editions. 

The year 18.50 was made remarkable by three important 
events in Tennyson's history : his appointment as poet laure- 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

ate, the publication of In Memoriam, and the beginning of 
his exceptionally happy married life. 

In Memoriam, the serious work from which The Princess 
seems to have been in some degree a relaxation, w^as another 
innovation in poetic form : an elegy in mosaic ; a psycho- 
logical study of grief in lyrical episodes. Unprecedented in 
method as the poem is, it has placed the name of Arthur 
Hallam fairly beside that of the more conventionally cele- 
brated Edward King of Milton's Lijcidas. The five following 
years brought forth numerous editions of the Poems, as well 
as of The Princess and In Memoriam. The most noteworthy 
product of the period, however, was Maud: A Monodrama. 
This poem was a legitimate development of the earlier lyrical 
monologues, but most of its critics failed to grasp its dramatic 
character. The oddity of its metrical forms was also an ob- 
stacle to general appreciation. With the poet it was always a 
favorite, the poem which he liked best to read to his friends ; 
and none of those who heard it so rendered failed to find it 
full of fresh beauty and power. 

With all his energy in new fields, however, Tennyson had 
lost nothing of his interest in idyllic narrative. The treatment 
in this form of the Arthurian legends seems to have retained 
its charm for him during more than half a century. The issue, 
in 1859, of the first four Idyls of the King was only the fulfil- 
ment of the early promise of The Lady of Shalott (1832), and 
Morted' Arthur (1842) ; and the series was completed only with 
the production of Balin and Balan, in 1885. 

The Arthurian idyl had seemed a distinct advance upon the 
earlier domestic idyl, — e.g., Dora, and Audley Court. Yet at 
this point we find Tennyson with an oddly characteristic versa- 
tility turning back to the older form, in Sea Dreams, Enoch 
Arden, etc. It is probable that he felt the airy unreality which 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

must belong- to pictures of bygone chivalry, and that he there- 
fore reverted, not without effort, to the delineation of nine- 
teenth century scenes and characters. ' These poems argue a 
curious restlessness in the taste of the writer,' says Mr. Waugh : 
' he seems uncertain still of the subjects most congenial to him, 
and the change is not an improvement. . . . Tennyson has 
lacked the delicate art of M. Francois Coppee, whenever he 
has approached subjects which lack beauty in themselves. In 
trying to adorn the scene he has obliterated its characteristic 
features. He has had no keen dramatic insight into a sordid 
situation : his art is thrown away on such coarse canvases. 
He felt this himself after a few attempts, and returned to his 
chivalry again. But for fully five years from the appearance 
of the first four IlnlSy Tennyson passed through an interest- 
ing period of unsettlement.' It was in 1861: that a volume 
came out w^hich consisted largely of poems of this domestic 
type. In 1869, however, three more of the Idyls of the King 
marked the return of the poet to his congenial sphere. 

There was to be still another attempt, however, in the 
search for a perfect medium of expression ; an attempt which 
should end only with the poet's life. Much of the work of his 
prime had been of dramatic value, but the stej) from dramatic 
monologue to dramatic dialogue must necessarily be abruj^t 
and perilous. Between 1875 and 1892 appeared Queen Ufary, 
Harold, The Cup, Becket, The Foresters, and three other dramas, 
shorter and less worthy. Harold, which, is perhaps the most 
original of the plays, has never been put to the test of stage 
production. Queen Mary was presented in 1876 by Henry 
Irving, but technical perfection of rendering could not con- 
ceal the evident faults of construction and lack of vitality in 
the play itself. The Cup and Becket, in the same hands, have 
been somewhat more successful : but the conclusion to which 



10 ■ INTRODUCTION. 

most critics are irresistibly led is that Tennyson was not by 
nature a playwright. All the dramas show evidences- of the 
sheerest effort; they are excursions in an uncongenial field. 
Never, to the very end, on the other hand, did the old poet 
lose the lyrical power which was properly his own. 

Although in middle life 'Tennyson had refused a baronetcy, 
in 1881 he yielded to the general desire, and was created a 
peer, with the title, ' Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Far- 
ringford.' The closing years of his life were breathed out in 
the serene quiet of Aldworth, in Surrey, and there, on October 
6th, 1892, shortly before the date set for the publication of 
his last volume, he died, as calmly as he had lived. 

' As a final word about Lord Tennyson, a laureate of thirty- 
seven years' service, it may be said that no predecessor has 
filled his office with fewer lapses from the quality of a poet. 
Southey's patriotic rubbish was no better, and not mUch worse, 
than his verse at large. AVordsworth, diiring the few years of 
his incumbency, wrote little official verse. Tennyson has 
freshened the greenness of the laurel; a vivid series of na- 
tional odes and ballads is the result of his journey as its 
wearer. That some of his perfunctory salutations and paeans 
have been failures, notably the Jubilee ode, is evidence that 
genius does not always obey orders.' ... < Reviewing our 
analysis of his genius and works, w^e find in Alfred Tennyson 
the true poetic irritability, a sensitiveness increased by his 
secluded life, and displayed from time to time in "the least 
little touch of the spleen ; " we perceive him to be the most 
faultless of modern poets in technical execution, but one whose 
verse is more remarkable for artistic perfection than for dra- 
matic action and inspired fervor. His adroitness surpasses 
his invention. Give him a theme, and no poet can handle it 



INTR OB UCTION. 11 

so exquisitely, — yet we feel that, with the Malory legends to 
draw upon, he could go on writing Idjjls of the King forever. 
We find him objective in the spirit of his verse, but subjec- 
tive in the decided manner of his style ; possessing a sense 
of proportion, based upon the highest analytic and synthetic 
powers, — a faculty that can harmonize the incongruous 
thoughts, scenes, and general details of a composite period ; 
in thought resembling Wordsworth, in art instructed by 
Keats, but rejecting the passion of Byron, or having nothing 
in his nature that aspires to it ; finally, an artist so perfect in 
a widely extended range, that nothing of his work can be 
spared, and in this respect approaching Horace and outvying 
Pope ; not one of the great wits nearly allied to madness, yet 
possibly to be accepted as a wiser poet, serene above the frenzy 
of the storm ; certainly to be regarded, in time to come, as, 
all in all, the fullest representative of the refined, speculative, 
complex Victorian age ' (Stedman). 

THP] POEM. 

The English-reading public received the first edition of 
The Princess with not a little surprise and chagrin. Since 
the publication of the collected poems in 1842, the circle of 
Tennyson's admirers had been growing rapidly and steadily. 
It was now seventeen years since his first appearance as a 
notable writer of lyrics. He had already, previous to the 
appointment of Wordsworth, been talked of for the laureate- 
ship. Meanwhile, more than one of his critics had hinted 
that the time was come for some more sustained flight, for 
the display of something more than the merely lyrical knack 
upon w^hich his reputation thus far hung. Whether Tennyson 
made the attempt in direct response to pressure of this sort 



1 2 IN TR OD UCTION. 

we do not know. Certain it is that when it transpired that 
he was at work upon a poem of greater scoj^e, — an epic, it 
was whispered, — expectation ran high. Most people seem to 
have looked for the treatment in the grand style of some high 
and serious theme ; something which should approach in kind, 
if not in degree, the work of Homer and Dante and Milton. 
Xo wonder that when The Princess came, the public felt 
its seriousness to be called in question, its dignity plainly 
challenged. Here was a long poem, to be sure, but a poem 
of inconsequential subject and uneven treatment. It could 
hardly be classified as epic, or even as legitimate metrical 
romance, yet what else did it pretend to be ? What label 
was to be affixed to this hybrid product ? The narrative 
lacked reality, the characters lacked consistency ; one could 
not trace the serious path of true love without bringing up in 
a farcical situation ; and the laughter in turn faded into dis- 
quisition upon the vulgar topic of ' woman's rights.' 

It must be remembered that The Princess made its d&)ut 
under conditions which no longer obtain, in England or else- 
where ; conditions which tended to make the element of bur- 
lesque in the poem more prominent to the reader of that day 
than it is now. The question of the higher education of 
women was then regarded as little more than a corollary 
to the vexed problem of woman's political sphere. The 
'woman's rights' agitation was then undergoing in England 
the undignified apprenticeship of a new and doubtful cause. 
Both from the ill-considered, sometimes grotesque, methods 
of its advocates, and from the hardly less extravagant cen- 
sures of its opponents, the result was that the question could 
not lie in the public mind as a topic for impartial and serious 
treatment of any sort — how much less for poetic treatment. 
If it were possible for us at this day to find among our 



INTB OB UCTION. 13 

young poets one who could claim half as much seriously- 
beautiful work as Tennyson had to his credit in 1847 ; and 
if we were to receive as an innovation from his pen a long 
poem, which defied categories, and which was apparently 
founded upon the opera-bouffe problem of the ' new woman ' : 
we should then have a fairly accurate experience of the aus- 
pices under which The Princess first appealed to its readers. 
The first two editions, moreover, were but crude and meagre 
in comparison with the present version of the poem. Not 
until the third edition (1850) were the five great songs in- 
serted ; the fourth edition (1851) saw the introduction of the 
business of the ' weird seizures,' which, however questionable 
in its actual effect, doubtless represents an effort toward giv- 
ing greater spiritual dignity to the characters and events. 
For six years after its first publication, the poet seems to have 
been restlessly striving by numerous minor changes to lessen 
the extravagance of the burlesque, and to make the vein of se- 
rious feeling more significant to the ordinary reader. Not till 
the fifth edition (1853) was the poem given its present form. 

And yet the fact that The Princess is to the modern reader 
a source of greater satisfaction than it can have been to 
its earliest critics, is due not entirely to later improvements 
in detail, or to the softening and subordinating by time of 
that risky topic of sex. The modern reader attacks the poem 
from a different point of view, or at least in a different mood. 
He can no longer, by any possibility, receive it as an ill omen. 
Tennyson's great energies are stilled, but only after abundant 
achievement. To a few modern admirers, it is true, this work 
appeals as the poet's most satisfying product ; but most of 
us are content to see in it what Dr. Van Dyke has seen, <■ one 
of the minor poems of a major poet.' It pleases us better 
than it pleased its early audience, not because we find in it 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

so much more, but because we expect so much less, of the 
highest poetic value. If, as those first critics did, we attempt 
to square the poem with classic standards of narrative and 
dramatic excellence, or if, like certain later enthusiasts, we 
claim a place for it as a didactic masterpiece, we must find 
ourselves committed to the consideration of some difficult 
problems. 

First, is it a great narrative poem? In conceding that a 
poetic medley is a possible, even a legitimate, exercise of the 
poet's creative power, we do not surrender the right to demand 
some degree of unity. It has been commonly claimed that 
the Prologue and the Epilogue disarm criticism by their frank 
statement of the incongruous elements which make up the 
body of the poem. But the poet, it is evident, does not mean 
to be taken too literally. No one would admit for a moment 
the claim of a mere versified jumble of incoherences upon the 
honest criticism which is due to honest literature. What de- 
gree of success was possible to such an attempt as Tennyson 
here made, whether so close an intimacy of romance and bur- 
lesque fantasy is potentially consistent with the highest art, we 
need not discuss. In any event of such a discussion we should 
be justified in stipulating that the incongruities of the subject 
should not infect the method and manner of its treatment. 

In the first place it should be noted that while in theme and 
scope the poem was different from anything which Tennyson 
had previously done, it was in treatment what might have 
been expected, predominantly idyllic. Previous to this time 
he had produced two varieties of the idyl ; the modern domes- 
tic idyl, such as Dora, Walking to the Mail, Audley Court, etc. ; 
and the mediaeval romantic or epic product to which he gave 
the same name in the Idyls of the King. In The Princess 
we are suddenly faced with a composite of the two types. 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

Yet the structure of tlie poem was not without precedent 
ill the poet's earlier work. The Epic — Morte d 'Arthur (1842) 
had presented the same surface in miniature, — a nineteenth 
century introduction and conclusion imbedding an epic frag- 
ment upon a mediaeval theme. But there is an essential 
difference. In The Epic — Morte d 'Arthur, the story itself 
is so sharply distinct in spirit and coloring from its modern 
setting that one feels no clash in the contrast. In The 
Princess, on the contrary, the light ephemeral tone of the 
Epilogue carries over, and forms one of the elements in 
the included poem itself. This is perhaps inevitable from 
the nature of the subject, but it is certainly one of the 
reasons why the pleasure in a first reading of the poem is 
to most of us touched with a vague feeling of discomfort. 
If it were profitable to imagine the poem other than it is, we 
might, not too fancifully, suppose that a certain gain in effec- 
tiveness might have accrued to Prologue and Epilogue from 
the use of such idyllic prose as Landor's, or better, of such 
daintily embellished rhyme as Tennyson himself had so per- 
fectly at his command. It is true that Tennyson's idyllic 
method was closely modeled upon that of Theocritus, who 
boldly chose as his medium the Homeric hexameter, and 
adapted it with marvelous skill to the treatment of his deli- 
cate themes. So the great English idyllist has employed 
the English heroic measure, the metre of Hamlet and Para- 
dise Lost. He too has attained success ; in the Arthurian 
group, which possess the advantage of being heroic in subject 
also, an eminent success. In the modern idyls, however, we 
are struck more with the technical perfection of the verse 
than with its fitness for the use to which it has been put. 
To say that the poet has succeeded in some degree is only 
to say that he has triumphed over difficulties; and in many 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

cases the marks of the struggle are still upon the finished 
product. A common feeling in his readers is still that the 
English pentameter, flexible as it has been proved to be, lends 
itself most readily to the treatment of forms more intense 
than that of the idyl, at least the domestic idyl. In the Pro- 
logue, Interlude, and Epilogue of The Princess, beyond a few 
descriptive touches, there is little v^'hich seems to be in the 
enjoyment of its natural medium. Possibly it is not too much 
to say that a greater variety of metrical form (and in Maud 
the jDoet shortly escaped from the pentameter into an unex- 
ampled variety of metre and rhyme) might have given the 
poem greater unity of impression. 

But v^^aiving the question of its setting, is the main body of 
the poem possessed of unity and power? We are not assent- 
ing to Poe's < flash of lightning ' theory of poetry, when we 
say that a very small portion of The Princess is highly poetic ; 
certainly the lyrical burst of inspired energy does not pre- 
sent the only type of poetic (creative) excellence. We do 
mean to say, however, that in this poem Tennyson fails to 
show, unless in a single passage, the description of the tour- 
nament, other excellences than those lyric and idyllic excel- 
lences which had been in evidence in his poetry from the first. 
The real merit of the poem is not in its narrative or dra- 
matic or didactic beauty, but in the beauty of its songs and 
its descriptions. ' The songs,' says Mr. Stedman, ' reach the 
high-water mark of lyrical composition. Few will deny that, 
taken together, the five melodies, " As through the land," 
" Sweet and low," " The splendor falls on castle walls," 
" Home they brought her warrior dead," and " Ask me no 
more ! " — that these constitute the finest group of songs pro- 
duced in our century; and the third, known as the Bugle 
Song, seems to many the most perfect English lyric since the 



INTR OD UCTION. 17 

time of Shakespeare. In The Princess we also find Tenny- 
son's most successful studies upon the model of the Theocri- 
tan isometric verse. He was the first to enrich our poetry 
with this class of melodies, for the burlesque pastorals of the 
eighteenth century need not be considered. Xot one of the 
blank verse songs in the Arthurian epic equals in structure 
or feeling the " Tears, idle tears," and " O swallow, swallow, 
flying, flying south ! " ' There are many descriptive passages 
of perfect beauty, and others which are marred only by that 
over-elaboration and unbalancing attention to detail which 
were prominent traits of his earliest work, and of which 
he was accused to the very end. — The poem, in short, is full 
of minor beauties ; we have still to look upon it as a whole. 
We find two kinds of narrative to consider here, the serious 
and the burlesque. The serious portions of the narrative are 
of uneven merit. The escape of the Prince and his compan- 
ions, the rescue of the Princess, and especially the account of 
the tournament, are bits of story-telling complete and admira- 
ble in themselves, but separated by lengths of variegated com- 
monplace. Moreover, we are not always certain whether to 
take a scene seriously or not. When the poet admits that he 
has ' moved as in a strange diagonal,' he admits that he has 
found difliculty, not in reconciling the serious and the bur- 
lesque elements in the poem, but in fusing them ; in making 
them the parts of a poetic whole. The difficulty lay for Ten- 
nyson in the fact that neither from temperament nor from 
training was the production of burlesque natural to him. That 
form of work, not valueless in itself, w^as unprofitable for him. 
Mr. Traill, in praising the poem for its humor, fails to remark 
upon the distinction between humor and burlesque. At the 
same time he criticises Fitzgerald for saying, ' Alfred, what- 
ever he may think, cannot trifle. His smile is rather a grim 



18 INTRO D UCTION. 

one.' Undoubtedly there is plenty of humor in the poem, 
but it exists independently of the burlesque. It is, indeed, 
the broadly humorous spirit of the poem, apparent as much 
as anywhere in what we call for convenience the ' serious ' pas- 
sages, which makes us willing to forgive the burlesque element 
— if we do forgive it. It would be absurd to expect a poet 
without a grand subject to attain the ' grand style ' ; but we 
are justified in expecting, in any work of art, a consistent style 
of some sort. Tennyson's attempt in The Princess to unite 
the incompatible has given us in many passages as a resultant 
a style which at times fairly approaches the grotesque. In 
either connection, professedly serious or burlesque as it may 
be, we find too often a jostle of modern colloquialism and 
Elizabethan idiom, of JMiltonic massiveness and nineteenth 
century frivolity. 

A similar confusion, arising from the same difliculty, is 
evident in the persons. It is impossible to look upon them 
as characters of dramatic distinctness. The poet himself was 
obviously dissatisfied with his work in this respect, as in 
others. The critics had from the first laid particular stress 
upon the weakness of the Prince's character. Tennyson 
seems to have felt in this connection the value of a suggestion 
which came from a reviewer of the first edition, that some ele- 
ment of mystery was due to the nature of the poem. Possi- 
bly he thought by the introduction of such a strain to induce 
a current of more genuine feeling in the first portion of the 
narrative, and to endow the hero of the romance with a more 
decided personality. At all events, in the fourth edition were 
inserted all the passages which have to do with the 'weird 
seizures.' The result was not happy. Mystery is hardly to 
be superimposed as an afterthought; the attempt is likely to 
end in nothing better than mystification. The vague unim- 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

pressiveness of the Prince's character is in no degree modi- 
fied by the suggestion of intermittent epilepsy or kmacy. His 
visions have unfortunately no bearing on the progress of 
events ; he is a prophet with nothing to prophesy about. In 
such a character we should hardly expect to find dramatic 
consistency. The Princess makes a not much greater claim 
upon our interest in her as a character study. During the 
greater part of the poem, although it is her lover who de- 
scribes her to us, we meet with little that attracts us. AVhen 
at the close she melts at last, she becomes charming ; but it 
is another Princess : her conversion is as abrupt as Oliver's or 
Duke Frederick's, in that earlier fairy tale. As You Like It. 
She is no better qualified than the Prince, by virtue of that 
moral dignity which can belong only to a strong personality, 
to serve as the central figure of a serious romantic narrative. 
Neither can one comfortably laugh at her. As for Psyche, 
there are two facts which prevent our perfect sympathy with 
her : first, the inexcusable weakness and heedlessness with 
which she abandons her child; and second (the suggestion 
of an early critic), the bad form, from a romantic point of view, 
of her second marriage. The love affairs of young widows 
are better suited to low comedy than to ideal romance. She 
has, nevertheless, rather more claim upon our interest, as a 
genuine personality, than either the Prince or the Princess. 
Florian is a mere echo of the Prince ; Melissa has no pre- 
tensions to reality; Lady Blanche plays well her somewhat 
conventional part, and is noted as being the only thoroughly 
unpleasant woman in Tennyson. The two kings and Arac are 
such characters as we meet later in the Idyls of the King : 
these three and Cyril, an admirable character of almost 
Shakespearean consistency, constitute, to the present writer, 
the main dramatic interest of the poem. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

But is it fair to criticise the poem from this point of view V 
Mr. Stedman says of Tennyson, in a general connection : ' A 
great master of contemplative, descriptive, or lyrical verse, he 
falls short in that combination of action and passion which w^e 
call dramatic, and often gives us a series of marvelous tableaux 
in lieu of exalted speech and deeds. . . . With few excep- 
tions, his most poetical types of men and women are not sub- 
stantial beings, but beautiful shadows, which, like the phantoms 
of a stereopticon, dissolve if you examine them too long and 
closely.' 

The Princess has often been compared to Midsummer Night's 
Dream, As You Like It, and the Winter s Tale. So far as the 
improbability of the events and the elusiveness of the char- 
acters are concerned, the comparison is a fair one. There 
is one difficulty, however, which exists only in the later ex- 
travaganza. The exigencies of the medley demand extraor- 
dinary service of the ijcrsonce. The same persons must do 
duty as romantic, as comic, and as farcical characters ; and if 
they are not suborned to the uses of tragedy, the escape is a 
narrow one. In the Shakespeare comedies, on the other 
hand, the line is pretty clearly drawn between the romantic 
and the humorous type. Suppose, instead of Oliver and Fred- 
erick, it had been Rosalind who needed conversion, and that 
not from romantic villany, but from pedantic masculinity; 
what should we be able to make of her character ? No, Rosa- 
lind in gown or doublet is always sweet Rosalind, and if 
Touchstone laughs at her, it is loving laughter. In Midsum- 
mer Night's Dream, dainty Titania is compromised by being 
made absurd ; but we know it is not she, after all. It is the 
solitary misfortune of Tennyson's Princess to be at once butt 
and heroine, sweetheart and pedant, masculinely tyrannical 
and femininely submissive. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

Neither for its narrative strength nor for its dramatic 
merit, then, can we consider The Princess a nobly poetic work. 
And now — for the intellectual significance of a poem must 
always be a secondary matter in literary study — let us look 
at the theme. Does the poem represent a serious attempt 
to solve specific problems? Or is it a love story? Perhaps it 
is sufficient to answer that every genuine love story solves 
a great many problems, specific and general. All pure love- 
making is largely didactic ; and there is some extremely good 
love-making at the close of this poem. The Prince says wise 
things about the sphere of woman, and her relationship to 
man, because he is very much in love ; it is given him to see 
deeply because he feels deeply. Indeed, the conception of the 
Prince owes most of its attractiveness to this sudden glibness 
of love-inspired insight. It is surely unnecessary to contend 
that he expresses exactly the opinion of Tennyson, and that 
Tennyson wrote the poem with the expression of just those 
truths in mind, as its main purpose. A recent editor says, 
< The Princess is a romance designed to indicate the poet's 
conception of the true sphere of woman and her function 
in society. The purport of the poem is didactic' This 
seems to the present writer extremely doubtful. As no pure 
utterance of the lover, so no sincere utterance of the poet, 
can be without its ethical values. But such values are quite 
as likely to be inherent, incidental, as to be premeditated. It 
is worth while for us to note, let us say, not what lessons 
Tennyson ' intended to teach,' but what lessons are inhe- 
rent in the poem, as the work of a genuine poet. 

There are a number of minor ' morals * which have been 
nmch enlarged upon by critics ; for example, that knowledge 
is not 'all in all'; that < woman is not undevelopt man, but 
diverse ' ; that only in the perfect union of woman and man 



22 INTR OD UCTION. 

lies the possibility of the highest usefulness of each ; and 
so forth. These truths are plainly a part of the poem ; they 
would even possess a certain independent interest if they were 
to be supposed to stand alone. They do not stand alone, how- 
ever, but are subordinate to the thought which is clearly dom- 
inant in this poem, as in all Tennyson's poetry; the familiar 
thought that all progress must be a matter of slow evolution 
from lower to higher, from higher to highest. In accordance 
with this underlying conception, then, the story demonstrates, 
or rather illustrates anew, the fact that no sudden revolt can 
bring about perfection of any kind, although it may consti- 
tute a necessary step in the advance toward perfection ; that 
all good things are to come to humanity, but that they must 
come slowly; and that, in the face of human doubt, and of 
disappointment to individual human methods, the law of 
gradual development is the law of love, and leads us, slowly 
but irresistibly, toward that 

' One far-off divine event 
To which the whole creation moves.' 

So much intellectual virtue is to be recognized in the poem. 
As has been said, it breathes from the work as a whole ; 
that is, it does not depend for its enforcement uj^on the 
utterance at the conclusion of the hero's love-wisdom, or 
upon the poet's own words in the Epilogue. 

But there is still another force in the poem besides that 
which lies in the formulation or embodiment of any intellect- 
ual abstraction. AVe have hitherto found no striking dignity 
in the narrative or in the characters. "Where then shall we 
look for the source of that inner energy with which, even 
in its early half-farcical episodes, the poem is indubitably 
furnished? Spiritually, the poem presents to us a single 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

figure of commanding interest. Among all the persons who 
appear in the course of the story there is just one of per- 
fect dignity, eloquent throughout, the centre and author of 
the action itself, Psyche's little daughter, the baby Aglaia. 
The discovery, or the first explicit statement of this fact, is due 
to Mr. Dawson : ' The babe, in the poem as in the songs,' he 
says, ' is made the central point upon which the plot turns ; 
for the unconscious child is the concrete embodiment of 
Nature herself, clearing away all merely intellectual theories 
by her silent influence. Ida feels the power of the child. 
Whenever the plot thickens, the babe appears. It is with 
Ida upon her judgment seat. In the topmost height of the 
storm the wail of the "lost lamb at her feet" reduces her 
eloquent anger into incoherence. She carries it when she 
sings her song of triumph. When she goes to tend her 
wounded brothers on the battle-field she carries it. Through 
it and for it Cyril pleads his successful suit, and wins it for 
the mother. For its sake the mother is pardoned.' In the 
child, and the insistence upon the power of the child and of 
the home ideals of which the child is the symbol, lies the 
unity of the poem. Unity of action, unity of character, unity 
of thought, even, it hardly claims to have : spiritual unity it 
claims and has. 

In conclusion, the present editor would suggest that the 
student be encouraged to approach The Princess not as a 
poetic masterpiece, but as a delightful bit of fiction in verse. 
There is no greater danger to the novice in the study of lit- 
erature than the worshipful method of attack. Every book 
which is worth studying is not a masterpiece. The process 
of study ought to make the limitations as well as the points 
of excellence more noticeable ; for it is quite as important 
that the student should learn from the start what to deprecate 



24 INTRO D UCTION. 

as what to admire.* Admitting that The Princess is not to 
be ranked with the noblest works of our literature, or even 
with the highest work of Tennyson, we must none the less 
admit that it is a story which it would be difficult to read 
without pleasure, or to study without interest. It has always 
been popular with its readers, and even with its wariest 
critics. ' For my own part,' says Mr. Traill, ' I confess to 
finding it, if not one of the poetically greatest, yet the most 
humanly complete, of all the poet's w^orks.' 'Other works 
of our poet are greater,' says Mr. Stedman, in the same vein, 
' but none is so fascinating as this romantic tale : English 
throughout, yet combining the England of Coeur de Leon 
with that of Victoria in one bewitching picture.' The char- 
acters on the whole are as consistent, and the narrative is as 
connected, as the needs of the average fairy-tale demand ; the 
moral is excellent ; and the larger spiritual significance of the 
poem is more than could be expected from such a setting. 
The present writer desires to conclude by quoting from Mr. 
Waugh, one of Tennyson's latest and ablest critics, the com- 
ment which most compactly and fairly represents his own 
judgment : 

'In the new setting the old note is the key-note the old 
note of gradual development, of steady progress, "conserving 
the hopes of man." No social revolution, no impetuous cru- 
sade for woman's rights, can effect the good that must come 



* • Myrtis and Corinna have no need of me. To read and recommend 
their works, to point out their beauties and defects, is praise enough. 

" How ! " methinks you exclaim, " to point out defects ! is that prais- 
ing?" 

Yes, Cleone ; if with equal good faith and accuracy you point out their 
beauties too. It is only thus a fair estimate can be made ; and it is only by 
such fair estimate that a writer can be exalted to his proper station.' — 
Landor, Pericles and Aspasia, xxxvii. 



INT ROB UCTION. 25 

by degrees. The emancipated woman is no heroine to the 
poet; he knows a better: 

" Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants. 
No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the gods and men." 

It is through the love of such a woman that a man accom- 
plishes his manhood. The affections cannot be repressed : 
without love life is unfinished. 

Apart from this underlying motive, which rises to the 
surface only with the end of the poem, The Princess is 
little but a dreamy story to read in a garden on a summer 
afternoon, full of music, and fuller still of rich and sugges- 
tive imagery. The insertion of the songs, delicate and beau- 
tiful in themselves, serves only to accentuate the artificiality 
of the whole work. Tennyson's detractors are ready to accuse 
him of over-refinement, of an eye too prone to color, and an 
ear too sensitive to melody, losing in their rapture the sights 
and sounds of the real, eternal truth. If such an accusation 
were to be urged, it could, perhaps, be best urged from an 
analysis of The Princess. For here Tennyson is in his dream- 
iest and his least virile mood ; here he indulges his senses 
to the waste of his thought. There is a time for every- 
thing ; and The Princess is not without its special charm. 
It is not Tennyson's highest work, neither is it his lowest ; it 
merely requires a sympathetic temperament in the reader to 
appear satisfying. It needs a temperament of momentary 
laziness, apt to languor, and inclined to a light satire, which 
shall not busy itself to wound too deeply. With this mind 
we shall find The Princess a storehouse of good things, a 
midsummer day's dream with a spell and fantasy that hold us 
to the end.' 



THE PKINCESS: 

A MEDLEY. 



PROLOGUE. 

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighboring borough, with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A AValter too, — with others of our set ; 
Five others : we were seven at Yivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 
Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names. 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, 
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time ; 
And on the tables every clime and age 
Jumbled together ; celts and calumets, 



28 THE PBINCE88: [prologue. 

Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 

Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries. 

Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 26 

The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 

From the isles of palm : and higher on the walls. 

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 

His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 

And ' This,' he said, ' was Hugh's at Agincourt ; 
And that was old Sir Kalph's at Ascalon : 
A good knight he ! We keep a chronicle 
With all about him ' — which he brought, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 30 

Who laid about them at their wills and died ; 
And mixt with these a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate. 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 

^ miracle of women,' said the book, 
' noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
By this wild king to force her to his wish, 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death. 
But now when all was lost, or seem'd as lost ■ — 
Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 

Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate. 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, 
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels, 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 29 

And some were whelm'd with, missiles of the wall, 
And some were push'd with lances from the rock, 
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook : 
miracle of noble womanhood ! ' 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 
And, I all rapt in this, ^ Come out,' he said, 50 

' To the Abbey : there is Aunt Elizabeth, 
And sister Lilia, with the rest.' We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro' the park : strange was the sight to me ; 
For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone 
And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 60 

The fountain of the moment, playing now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls. 
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
Danced like a wisp : and somewhat lower down 
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
A cannon ; Echo answer 'd in her sleep 
Erom hollow fields : and here were telescopes 
Eor azure views ; and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 
Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter : round the lake 70 
A little clock-Avork steamer paddling plied, 
And shook the lilies : perch'd about the knolls 



30 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 

A dozen angry models jetted steam : 

A petty railway ran : a fire-balloon 

E-ose gem-like up before the dusky groves 

And dropt a fairy parachute, and past : 

And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 

They flash'd a saucy message to and fro 

Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 

Went hand in hand with Science ; otherwhere so 

Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd 

And stump'd the wicket ; babies roll'd about 

Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids 

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light 

And shadow, while the twangling violin 

Struck up with ^ Soldier-laddie,' and overhead 

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 

Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 

Strange was the sight, and smacking of the time ; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length oo 

Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire. 
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave 
The park, the crowd, the house ; but all within 
The sward was trim as any garden lawn : 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth 
And Lilia, with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbor seats : and there was Ealph himself 
A broken statue propt against the wall. 
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, loo 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 31 

Half child, half woman as she was, had wound 

A scarf of orange round the stony helm. 

And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, 

That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 

Glow like a sunbeam : near his tomb a feast 

Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests. 

And there we join'd them : then the maiden Aunt 

Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 

An universal culture for the crowd. 

And all things great ; but we, unworthier, told no 

Of college : he had climb'd across the spikes. 

And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars. 

And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs ; and one 

Discuss'd his Tutor, rough to common men. 

But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 

And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 

Yeneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought 
My book to mind : and opening this I read 120 

Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
And much I praised her nobleness, and ^ AYhere,' 
Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him), ^ lives there such a woman now ? ' 

Quick answer'd Lilia, ' There are thousands now 



32 THE PBINCESS: [prologue. 

Such women, but convention beats them down : 

It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 

You men have clone it : how I hate you all ! iso 

Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 

Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then 

That love to keep us children ! I wish 

That I were some great princess, I would build 

Far off from men a College like a man's. 

And I would teach them all that men are taught ; 

We are twice as quick ! ' And here she shook aside 

The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 

And one said smiling, • Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt i4o 
With prudes for Proctors, dowagers for Deans, 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not Avear our rusty gowns, 
But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ealph 
Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 
If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest, 
Some boy would spy it.' 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : 
^ That 's your light way ; but I would make it death iso 
For any male thing but to peep at us.' 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd ; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns. 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 33 

And sweet as English air could make lier, she : ' 

But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 

And ' petty Ogress/ and ' ungrateful Puss/ 

And swore he long'd at college, — only long'd, 

All else was well, — for she-society. 

They boated and they cricketed ; they talk'd 

At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; ico 

They lost their weeks ; they vext the souls of Deans ; 

They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends. 

And caught the blossom of the flying Terms : 

But miss'd the mignonette of Yivian-place, 

The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke. 

Part banter, part affection. 

' True,' she said, 
' We doubt not that. yes, you miss'd us much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.' 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 170 

And takes a lady's finger with all care. 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
And wrung it. 'Doubt my word again ! ' he said. 
' Come, listen ! here is proof that you were miss'd : 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read ; 
And there we took one tutor as to read : 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season : never man, I think. 
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he : iso 



34 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 

For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet 

And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 

We did but talk you over, pledge you all 

In wassail ; often, like as many girls. 

Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 

As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 

Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 

And Whafs my thought ? and When and ivhere and how ? 

And often told a tale from mouth to mouth. 

As here at Christmas.' 

She remember'd that : loo 

A pleasant game she thought : she liked it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these — What kind of tales did men tell men, 
She wonder'd, by themselves ? 

A half-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips ; 
And Walter nodded at me : ^He began. 
The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind ? what kind ? 
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms. 
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200 

Time by the fire in winter.' 

' Kill him now. 
The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too,' 
Said Lilia ; ' Why not now ? ' the maiden Aunt. 
^ Why not a summer's as a winter's tale ? 
A tale for summer as befits the time. 
And something it should be to suit the place, 



PROLOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 35 

Heroic, — for a hero lies beneath, — 
Grave, solemn ! ' 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd. 
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 210 

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker 
Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face 
With color) turn'd to me with 'As you will 5 
Heroic if you will^, or what you will^ 
Or be yourself your hero if you will.' 

' Take Lilia, then, for heroine,' clamor'd he, 
^ And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
The Prince to win her ! ' 

' Then follow me, the Prince,' 
I answerd ; ' each be hero in his turn ! 221 

Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
Heroic seems our Princess as required — 
Lut Something made to suit with time and place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
Por which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all — 
This were a medley ! we should have him back 230 

"Who told the ' Winter's Tale ' to do it for us. 
Ko matter : we will say whatever comes. 



36 THE PRINCESS: [prologue. 

And let the ladies sing us, if they will, 
From time to time, some ballad or a song 
To give us breathing-space.' 

So I began. 
And the rest follow'd : and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : 
And here I give the story and the songs. 



PART I.] A MEDLEY. 37 



I. 



A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 

There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
Dying, that none of all our blood should know 
The shadow from the substance, and that one 
Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. lo 

For so, my mother said, the story ran. 
And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 
An old and strange affection of the house. 
Myself too had weird seizures. Heaven knows what : 
On a sudden in the midst of men and day, 
And while I walk'd and talked as heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane. 
And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd 'catalepsy.' 20 

My mother, pitying, made a thousand prayers ; 
My mother was as mild as any saint, 
Half-canonized by all that look'd on her. 



38 THE PBINCESS: [pakt 

So gracious was lier tact and tenderness : 

But my good father thought a king a king ; 

He cared not for the affection of the house ; 

He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 

To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 

Eeach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 

For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been, so 
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighboring Princess : she to me 
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old ; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart. 
And one dark tress ; and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm, as bees about their 
queen. ' 

But when the days drew nigh that I should w^ed, 40 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her: these brought back 
A present, a great labor of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 
He said there was a compact ; that was true : 
But then she had a will ; was he to blame ? 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 



I.] A MEDLEY. 39 

That morning m the presence room I stood 50 

With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 
And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
Grow long and troubled, like a rising moon. 
Inflamed with wrath: he started on his feet. 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent eo 

The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men. 
And bring her in a whirlwind : then he chew'd 
The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen. 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. ' My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable : 70 

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 
Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame. 
May rue the bargain made.' And Florian said : 
^ I have a sister at the foreign court. 
Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know, 
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence : 



40 THE PRINCESS: [part 

He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, 

The lady of three castles in that land : 

Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean.' 

And Cyril whisper'd : ^ Take me with you too.' so 

Then, laughing, ^ What if these weird seizures come 

Upon you in those lands, and no one near 

To point you out the shadow from the truth ! 

Take me : I'll serve you better in a strait ; 

I grate on rusty hinges here : ' but ^ No ! ' 

Roar'd the rough king, ' you shall not ; we ourself 

Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 

In iron gauntlets : break the council up.' 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town ; 90 

Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out ; 
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees : 
What were those fancies ? wherefore break her troth ? 
Proud look'd the lips : but while I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together ; and a Voice 
Went with it, ' Follow, follow, thou shalt win.' 

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 100 

Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived. 
Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread 



I.] A MEDLEY. 41 

To hear my father's clamor at our backs, 

With ^ Ho ! ' from some bay-window, shake the night ; 

But all was quiet : from the bastion'd walls 

Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, 

And flying reach'd the frontier : then we crost 

To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange, 

And vines, and blowijig bosks of wilderness, no 

We gain'd the mother-city, thick with towers. 

And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama ; crack'd and small his voice. 
But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines ; 
A little dry old man, without a star : 
iSTot like a king. Three days he feasted us, 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came. 
And my betroth'd. ' You do us. Prince,' he said, 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 120 

'All honor. We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth : there did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 
I think the year in which our olives fail'd. 
I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, 
With my full heart : but there were widows here. 
Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; 
They fed her theories, in and out of place 
Maintaining that with equal husbandry 
The woman were an equal to the man. 130 

They harp'd on this ; with this our banquets rang ; 



42 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk ; 

Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot 

To hear them : knowledge, so my daughter held, 

Was all in all : they had but been, she thought, 

As children ; they must lose the Child, assume 

The Woman : then, Sir, awful odes she wrote. 

Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, 

But all she is and does is awful ; odes 

About this losing of the Child ; and rhymes ho 

And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 

Beyond all reason : these the women sang ; 

And they that know such things — I sought but peace ; 

No critic I — would call them masterpieces : 

They master'd vie. At last she begg'd a boon, 

A certain summer palace which I have 

Hard by your father's frontier : I said no, 

Yet being an easy man, gave it : and there. 

All wdld to found an University 

For maidens, on the spur she fled ; and more i50 

We know not, — only this : they see no men. 

Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins 

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 

As on a kind of paragon ; and I 

(Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed 

Dispute betwixt myself and mine : but since 

(And I confess with right) you think me bound 

In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; 

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 

Almost at naked nothing.' 



I.] A MEDLEY. 43 

Thus the king ; leo 

And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 
With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
But chafing me on fire to find my bride) 
Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 
Many a long league back to the North. At last, 
From hills that look'd across a land of hope. 
We dropt with evening on a rustic town 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve. 
Close at the boundary of the liberties ; 171 

There, enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host 
To council, plied him with his richest wines, 
And show'd the late-writ letters of the king. 

He Avith a long low sibilation, stared 
As blank as death in marble ; then exclaim'd, 
Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go : but as his brain 
Began to mellow, ' If the king,' he said, 
^ Had given us letters, was he bound to speak ? 
The king would bear him out ; ' and at the last — 180 
The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
* Xo doubt that we might make it worth his while. 
She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ; 
She scared him ; life ! he never saw the like ; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday, and as grave : 
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there ; 
He always made a point to post with mares ; 



44 THE PRINCESS: [part 

His daughter and his housemaid were the boys : 

The land, he understood, for miles about 

Was till'd by women ; all the swine were sows, loo 

And all the dogs ' — 

But while he jested thus, 
A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act, 
Eemembering how we three presented Maid, 
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 
In masque or pageant at my father's court. 
"We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; 
He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 
The midriff of despair with laughter, liolp 
To lace us up, till each in maiden plumes 
We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 200 

To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds. 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We follow' d up the river as we rode. 
And rode till midnight, when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
And linden alley : then we past an arch. 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 
And some inscription ran along the front, 
But deep in shadow : further on we gain'd 210 

A little street, half garden and half house ; 
But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 



I.] A MEDLEY. 45 

Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
Eapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, 
By two sphere lamps blazon 'd like Heaven and Earth 
With constellation and with continent, 221 

Above an entry : riding in, we call'd ; 
A plump-arm'd ostleress and a stable wench 
Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillar' d porch, the bases lost 
In laurel : her we ask'd of that and this. 
And who were Tutors. ' Lady Blanche,' she said, 
^ And Lady Psyche.' ^ AYhich was prettiest, 230 

Best-natured ? ' ' Lady Psyche.' ' Hers are we,' 
One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote. 
In such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East : 

' Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your own. 
As Lady Psyche's pupils.' 

This I seal'd : 
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll. 
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung. 
And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes : 240 



46 THE PRINCESS: [part i. 

I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 
To float about a glimmering night, and watch 
A full sea, glazed with muffled moonlight, swell 
On some dark shore, just seen that it was rich. 



As thro' the laud at eve we weut, 

Aud pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
AYe fell out, my wife aud I, 
O we fell out I know not why, 
Aud kiss'd again with tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave. 

We kiss'd again with tears. 



48 THE Pn IN CESS: [part 



11. 



At break of day the College Portress came : 

She brought us Academic silks, in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each. 

And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons. 

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 

The Princess Ida waited. Out we paced, 

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 

All round with laurel, issued in a court 

Compact of lucid marbles boss'd with lengths lo 

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 

Betwixt the pillars, and Avith great urns of flowers. 

The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes, 

Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst 

And here and there on lattice edges lay 

Or book or lute ; but hastily we past. 

And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne. 
All beauty compass'd in a female form, 20 

The Princess ; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the sun. 



II.] A MEDLEY. 49 

Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 
From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Lived tliro' her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said : 

' We give you welcome : riot without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, 30 

And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What ! are the ladies of your land so tall ? ' 
'We of the court,' said Cyril. 'From the court,' 
She answer'd ; ' then ye know the Prince ? ' and he : 
' The climax of his age ! as tho' there were 
One rose in all the world, your highness that, 
He worships your ideaL' She replied : 
' We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage current among men, 4o 

Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power ; 
Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him : when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well. 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks which make us toys of men, that so. 
Some future time, if so indeed you will, 50 



50 THE PRINCESS: [pakt 

You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
Your fortunes justlier balanced, scale with scale.' 

At those high words, we conscious of ourselves 
Perused the matting ; then an officer 
Eose up, and read the statutes, such as these : 
Kot for three years to correspond with home ; 
Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 
Not for three years to speak with any men ; 
And many more, which hastily subscribed. 
We enter' d on the boards : and ' Now,' she cried, eo 
' Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall ! 
Our statues ! — not of those that men desire. 
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode. 
Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she 
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 
The Carian Artemisia strong in war. 
The Ehodope that built the pyramid, 
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 70 

Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
Convention, since to look on noble forms 
Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 
That which is higher. lift your natures up : 
Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd : 
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave. 
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 



II.] A MEDLEY. 51 

And slander, die. Better not be at all 

Than not "be noble. Leave us ; you may go : so 

To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 

The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 

For they press in from all the provinces, 

And fill the hive.' 

She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal : back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's. As we enter'd in. 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils : she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 90 

A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side, or so she look'd. 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star. 
Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced : 
Then Florian, — but no livelier than the dame 
That whisper'd 'Asses' ears ' among the sedge, — 
' My sister.' ' Comely, too, by all that's fair,' 
Said Cyril. ^ hush, hush ! ' and she began. 100 

' This world was once a fluid haze of light. 
Till toward the centre set the starry tides, 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins. 



52 THE PRINCESS: [part 

E-aw from the prime, and crushing clown his mate ; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, — and here 
Among the lowest.' 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon no 

As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 
Ean down the Persian, Grecian, Koman lines 
Of empire, and the woman's state in each, 
How far from just : till, warming with her theme. 
She fulmined out her scorn of laws Sulique, 
And little-footed China ; touch'd on Mahomet 
With much contempt, and came to chivalry, 
When some respect, however slight, was paid 120 

To woman, — superstition all awry : 
However, then commenced the dawn : a beam 
Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed. 
Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 
To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 
Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
None lordlier than themselves but that which made 
Woman and man. She had founded 5 they must 

build. 
Here might they learn whatever men were taught : iso 
Let them not fear. Some said their heads were less : 
Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 



n.] A MEDLEY. 53 

For often fineness compensated size : 

Besides, the brain was like tlie hand, and grew 

With using ; thence the man's, if more, was more. 

He took advantage of his strength to be 

First in the fiekl : some ages had been lost ; 

But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 

Was longer ; and albeit their glorious names 

Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth i40 

The liighest is the measure of the man. 

And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 

Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 

But Homer, Plato, Yerulam ; even so 

W^ith woman. And in arts of government 

Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 

The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 

Sappho and others, vied with any man : 

And, last not least, she who had left her place, 

And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow 150 

To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 

In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 

Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy, 
Dilating on the future : ' Everywhere 
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind ; leo 



54 THE PRINCESS 



[part 



Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more : 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls. 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world.' 

She ended here, and beckon'd us : the rest 
Parted ; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was moving on 
In gratulation, till, as when a boat 
Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice 
Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, no 

^ My brother ! ' ^ Well, my sister.' ' 0,' she said, 
' What do you here ? and in this dress ? and these ? 
Why who are these ? a wolf within the fold ! 
A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! 
A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all ! ' 
' No plot, no plot,' he answer'd. • Wretched boy. 
How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 
Let no man enter in on pain of death ? ' 
' And if I had,' he answer'd, ^ who could think 
The softer Adams of your Academe, i80 

sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such 
As chanted on the blanching bones of men ? ' 
' But you will find it otherwise,' she said. 
^ You jest : ill jesting with edge-tools ! My vow 
Binds me to speak, and that iron will. 
That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 
The Princess.' ^ Well then. Psyche, take my life. 
And nail me like a weasel on a grange 



II.] A MEDLEY. 55 

For warning : bury me beside the gate, 

And cut this epitaph above my bones ; loo 

Ilei'e lies a brother bij a sister slain, 

All for the common good of womankind.'' 

< Let me die too/ said Cyril, ' having seen 

And. heard the Lady Psyche.' 

I struck in : 
^ Albeit so mask VI, ]VIadam, I love the truth ; 
Ileceive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, affianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida : here, for here she was. 
And thus (what other way was left) I came.' 
'■ Sir, Prince, I have no country, none ; 200 

If any, this : but none. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianced, Sir ? Love-whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
Who am not mine, say, live : the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent ; but prepare : I speak ; it falls.' 
' Yet pause,' I said : '■ for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein. 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth. 
To scare the fowl from fruit : if more there be, 210 

If more and acted on, what follows ? war ; 
Your own work marr'd : for this your Academe, 
Whichever side be victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
With all fair theories only made to gild 
A stormless summer.' ' Let the Princess judge 



56 THE PRINCESS: [pajit 

Of that/ she said : ' farewell, Sir — and to you. 
I shudder at the sequel, but I go.' 

' Are you that Lady Psyche,' I rejoin'd, 
' The fifth in line from that old Florian, 220 

Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, 
And all else fled ? We point to it, and we say, 
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold. 
But branches current yet in kindred veins.' 
^ Are you that Psyche,' Florian added ; ^ she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills, 
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, 230 

And snared the squirrel of the glen ? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow. 
To smoothe my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
My sickness down to happy dreams ? are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one ? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you now ? ' 
^ You are that Psyche,' Cyril said, ' for whom 
I would be that for ever which I seem. 
Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, ■ 240 

And glean your scatter'd sapience.' 

Then once more, 
^Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began, 
^ That on her bridal morn, before she past 



II.] A MEDLEY. 57 

From all her old companions, when the king 

Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 

Would still be dear beyond the southern hills ; 

That were there any of our people there 

In want or peril, there was one to hear 

And help them ? Look ! for such are these and I.' 

' Are you that Psyche,' Florian ask'd, ' to whom, 250 

In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 

Came flying while you sat beside the well ? 

The creature laid his muzzle on your lap. 

And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 

Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 

by the bright head of my little niece, 

You were that Psyche, and what are you now ? ' 

' You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again, 

^ The mother of the sweetest little maid 260 

That ever crow'd for kisses.' 

' Out upon it ! ' 
She answer'd, ' peace ! and why should I not play 
The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind ? 
Him 3' ou call great : he for the common weal. 
The fading politics of mortal Eome, 
As I might slay this child, if good need were. 
Slew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom 
The secular emancipation turns 

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 270 
A prince, a brother ? A little will I yield : 



58 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 

hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 

My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — 

Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 

You perish) as you came, to slip away 

To-day, to-morrow, soon : it shall be said, 

These women were too barbarous, would not learn ; 

They fled, who might have shamed us : promise, all.' 

What could we else ? we promised each ; and she, 280 
Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Florian ; holding out her lily arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 
< T knew you at the first : tho' 3'ou have grown 
You scarce have alter' d : I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. / give thee to death. 
My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well ? ' 

With that she kiss'd 290 

His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth. 
And far allusion, till the gracious dews 
Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice : 
* I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.' 



II.] A MEDLEY. 59 

Back started she, and turning round we saw 

The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 300 

Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 

A rosy blonde, and in a college gown 

That clad her like an April daffodilly 

(Her mother's color), with her lips apart. 

And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes 

As bottom agates, seen to wave and float 

In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 

So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche, ^ Ah — Melissa — you ! 
You heard us ? ' and Melissa, ' pardon me, 310 

I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 
ISTor think I bear that heart within my breast. 
To give three gallant gentlemen to death. 
' I trust you,' said the other, ' for we two 
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine : 
But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 
The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 
This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 320 

My honor, these their lives.' ' Ah, fear me not,' 
Replied Melissa ; ^ no — I would not tell, 
No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness. 
No, not to answer. Madam, all those hard things 
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 
' Be it so,' the other, ' that we still may lead 



60 THE PRINCESS: [part 

The new light up, and culminate in peace ; 

For Solomon may come to Sheba yet.' 

Said Cyril, ' Madam, he the wisest man 

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 330 

Of Lebanonian cedar : nor should you 

(Tho'j Madam, you should answer, tve would ask) 

Less welcome find among us, if you came 

Among us, debtors for our lives to you, — 

Myself for something more.' He said not what ; 

But ' Thanks,' she answer'd ; ' go : we have been too long 

Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 

They do so that affect abstraction here. 

Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 

Your promise : all, I trust, may yet be well.' 340 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, 
And held her round the knees against his waist, 
And blew the swoln cheek of a trumpeter. 
While Psyche Avatch'd them, smiling, and the child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ; 
And thus our conference closed. 

And then we stroll' d 
For half the day thro' stately theatres 
Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 350 

With flawless demonstration : follow'd then 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out 



"•] A MEDLEY. 61 

By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 

That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 

Sparkle for ever : then we dipt in all 

That treats of whatsoever is ; the state. 

The total chronicles of man, the mind. 

The morals, something of the frame ; the rock, seo 

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower ; 

Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest : 

And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 

Till, like three horses that have broken fence 

And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 

We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke 

'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.' 

' They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, ' very well ; 

But when did woman ever yet invent ? ' 

' Ungracious ! ' answer'd Florian ; ' have you learnt 370 

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 

The trash that made me sick, and almost sad ? ' 

' trash,' he said, ' but with a kernel in it. 

Should I not call her wise, who made me wise ? 

And learnt ? I learnt more from her in a flash, 

Than if my brainpan were an empty hull. 

And every Muse tumbled a science in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 

And round these halls a thousand baby loves 

Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, sso 

Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but O 

With me. Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy. 



62 THE PRINCESS: [part 

The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 

The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too ; 

He cleft me thro' the stomacher. And now 

What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 

The substance or the shadow ? will it hold ? 

I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 

No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 

Flatter myself that always everywhere 390 

I know the substance when I see it. Well, 

Are castles shadows ? Three of them ? Is she 

The sweet proprietress a shadow ? If not, 

Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat ? 

For dear are those three castles to my wants, 

And dear is sister Psych'e to my heart. 

And two dear things are one of double worth ; 

And much I might have said, but that my zone 

Unmann'd me : then the Doctors ! to hear 

The Doctors ! to watch the thirsty plants 400 

Imbibing ! once or twice I thought to roar. 

To break my chain, to shake my mane : but thou 

Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry ! 

Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat 

Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 

Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; 

Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 

A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek. 

Where they like swallows coming out of time 

Will wonder why they came : but hark the bell 410 

For dinner, let us go ! ' 



II.] A MEDLEY. 63 

And in we streamed 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair. 
In colors gayer than the morning mist, 
The long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers. 
How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her who, rapt in glorious dreams, 
The second-sight of some Astrsean age, 420 

Sat compass'd with Professors : they, the while, 
Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro : 
A clamor thicken'd, mixed with inmost terms 
Of art and science : Lady Blanche alone. 
Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments. 
With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there 
One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 430 

In this hand held a volume as to read. 
And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : 
Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by. 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadow'd from the heat : some hid and sought 
In the orange thickets : others tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter : others lay about the lawns, 



64 THE PRINCESS: [part it. 

Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May 

Was passing : what was learning unto them ? 44o 

They wish'd to marry ; they could rule a house ; 

Men hated learned women : but we three 

Sat muffled like the Fates ; and often came 

Melissa, hitting all we saw with shafts 

Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 

That harm'd not : then day droopt ; the chapel bells 

Call'd us : we left the walks ; we mixt with those 

Six hundred maidens clad in purest white. 

Before two streams of light from wall to wall. 

While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 450 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 

A long melodious thunder to the sound 

Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies : 

The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 

A blessing on her labors for the world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea-, 
Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again to me ; 
AYhile my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon : 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 



QQ THE PRINCESS: [part 



III. 

Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care 
Descended to the court, that lay three parts 
In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd 
Above the darkness, from their native East. 

There, while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd 
Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep. 
Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes lo 

The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 
And ' Fly,' she cried, ' fly, while yet you may ! 
My mother knows : ' and when I ask'd her ' How ? ' 
^ My fault,' she wept, ' my fault ! and yet not mine ; 
Yet mine in part. hear me, pardon me. 
My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 
To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 
She says the Princess should have been the Head, 
Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 
And so it was agreed when first they came ; 20 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 
And she the left, or not or seldom used ; 



III.] A MEDLEY. 67 

Hers more than half the students, all the love. 

And so last night she fell to canvass you : 

Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 

" Who ever saw such wild barbarians ? 

Girls ? — more like men ! '*' and at these words the snake, 

My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast ; 

And oh, Sirs, could I help it ? but my cheek 

Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 30 

To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd : 

" marvelously modest maiden, you ! 

Men ! girls, like men ! why, if they had been men 

You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 

For wholesale corument.'' Pardon, I am shamed 

That I must needs repeat for my excuse 

What looks so little graceful : " Men '' (for still 

My mother went revolving on the word), 

" And so they are, — very like men indeed, — 

And with that woman closeted for hours ! " 40 

Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 

" Whi/ — these — (X?'e — me7i .' " — I shudder'd : — " and 

you knoiv it.^' 
" ask me nothing," I said : — "A7id she kriows too, 
And she conceals it."' So my mother clutch'd 
The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess : Lady Psyche will be crush'd ; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly : 
But heal me with your pardon ere you go.' 



68 THE PRINCESS: [part 

' What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush. ? ' 50 

Said Cyril : ' Pale one, blush again : than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven,' 
He added, ' lest some classic angel speak 
In scorn of us, " They mounted, Ganymedes, 
To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn." 
But I will melt this marble into wax 
To yield us farther furlough : ' and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. ' Tell us,' Plorian ask'd, go 
' How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.' 
' long ago,' she said, ' betwixt these two 
Division smoulders hidden ; 'tis my mother 
Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
Pent in a crevice : much I bear with her : 
I never knew my father, but she says 
(God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth. 
And from the Queen's decease she brought her uj). 70 
But when your sister came she won the heart 
Of Ida : they were still together, grew 
(For so they said themselves) inosculated , 
Consonant chords that shiver to one note ; 
One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories. 
And angled with them for her pupil's love : 



III.] A MEDLEY. 69 

She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 
But I must go ; I dare not tarry/ and light 
As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 8o 

Then murmur'd Florian, gazing after her, 
' An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she : how pretty 
Her blushing was, and how she blush'd again, 
As if to close w^ith Cyril's random wish : 
Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.' 

' The crane,' I said, ^ may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I, 
An eagle, clang an eagle to the sphere. 90 

My princess, my princess ! — True, she errs, 
But in her own grand way : being herself 
Three times more noble than threescore of men, 
She sees herself in every Avoman else; 
And so she wears her error like a crown 
To blind the truth and me : for her, and her, 
Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 
The nectar ; but — ah, she ! — whene'er she moves 
The Samiau Here rises, and she speaks 
A Memnon smitten with the morning sun.' loo 

So saying, from the court we paced, and gain'd 
The terrace ranged along the Northern front. 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 



70 THE PBINCESS: [part 

Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 

That, blown about the foliage underneath, 

And sated with the innumerable rose. 

Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 

Cyril, and yawning, ' hard task,' he cried, 

' No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 

Thro' solid opposition, crabb'd and gnarl'd. no 

Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 

A league of street in summer solstice down, 

Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 

I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd ; found her there 

At point to move, and settled in her eyes 

The green malignant light of coming storm. 

Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd 

As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 

Concealment : she demanded who we were. 

And why we came ? I fabled nothing fair, 120 

But, your example pilot, told her all. 

Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 

But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 

She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 

I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 

And our three lives. True — we had limed ourselves 

With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 

But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 

The woman's cause. " Not more than now," she said, 

" So puddled as it is with favoritism." 130 

I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 

Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew : 



III.] A MEDLEY. 71 

Her answer was " Leave me to deal with that." 

I spoke of war to come, and many deaths, 

And she replied, her duty was to speak. 

And duty duty, clear of consequences. 

I grew discouraged, Sir ; but since I knew 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 

May beat admission in a thousand years, 

I recommenced : " Decide not ere you pause. 140 

I find you here but in the second place, 

Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 

I offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 

Wink at our advent : help my prince to gain 

His rightful bride, and here I promise you 

Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 

The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 

And your great name flow on with broadening time 

YoT ever." Well, she balanced this a little. 

And told me she would answer us to-day, 150 

Meantime be mute : thus much, nor more I gain'd.' 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
< That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North. 
Would we go with her ? we should find the land 
Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder : ' then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platan's of the vale. 



72 THE PBTNCESS: [part 

Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all leo 

Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
Among hes maidens, higher by the head, 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he rolPd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near ; 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
Upon me, the Aveird vision of our house : 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy, 170 

Her college and her maidens, empty masks, 
And I myself the shadow of a dream ; 
Por all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with awe ; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue, following up 
The river as it narrow'd to the hills. I80 

I rode beside her, and to me she said : 
' friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake.' ' No — not to her,' 
I answer' d, ' but to one of whom we spake 
Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say.' 
^ Again ? ' she cried, ' are you ambassadresses 



III.] A MEDLEY. 73 

From him to me ? We give you, being strange, 
A license : speak, and let the topic die.' 

I stammer' d that I knew him — could have wish'd — 
' Our king expects — was there no precontract ? 191 

There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
To follow : surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him even to death. 
Or baser courses, children of despair.' 

' Poor boy,' she said, ' can he not read — no books ? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise ? 200 

To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl ; — 
As girls were once, — as we ourself have been : 
We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them : 
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it. 
Being other — since we learnt our meaning here. 
To lift the woman's fallen divinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man.' 

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile, 
< And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210 

At no man's beck, but know ourself — and thee, 
Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summon'd out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.' 



74 ' THE PRINCESS: [pakt 

^ Alas, your Highness breathes full East/ I said, 
^ On that Avhich leans to you. I know the Prince, 
I prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray preeminence of man ! 
You grant me license ; might I use it ? Think ; 
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail; 220 

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
Eesmooth to nothing : might I dread that you, 
With only Eame for spouse and your great deeds 
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
INIeanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness ? ' 

And she exclaim'd, 
^ Peace, you young savage of the ISTorthern wild ! 230 

What ! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice ? 
You are bold indeed :' we are not talk'd to thus : 
Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
Like field-flowers everywhere ! we like them well : 
But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts. 
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 24i 

— children — there is nothing upon earth 



III.] A MEDLEY. 75 

More miserable than she that has a son 

And sees him err ! Nor would we work for fame ; 

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 

Who learns the one pou sto whence afterhands 

May move the world, tho' she herself effect 

But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 

For fear our solid aim be dissipated 

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 250 

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 

Of giants living each a thousand years, 

That we might see our own work out, and watch 

The sandy footprint harden into stone.' 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
If that strange Poet-princess, with her grand 
Imaginations, might at all be won. 
And she broke out, interpreting my thoughts : 

^ No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; 
We are used to that : for women, up till this 260 

Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo. 
Dwarfs of the gynseceum, fail so far 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 
if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches, than by single act 
Of immolation, any phase of death. 
We were as prompt to spring against the pikes. 



76 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, 270 

To compass our dear sisters' liberties/ 

She bow'd, as if to veil a noble tear ; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 
And danced the color, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
' As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be.' ' Dare we dream of that,' I ask'd, 280 

^ Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, 
That practice betters ? ' ' How,' she cried, ' you love 
The metaphysics ! Read and earn our prize, 
A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
Of hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the life ; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her : 
For there are schools for all.' ^And yet,' I said, 
^ Methinks I have not found among them all 
One anatomic' ' Nay, we thought of that,' 290 

She answer'd, ' but it pleased us not : in truth 
We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 
And cram him with the fragments of the grave. 
Or in the dark dissolving human heart. 
And holy secrets of this microcosm. 
Dabbling a shameless hand Avith shameful jest, 



III.] A MEDLEY. 77 

Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know- 
Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : 
Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 300 

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt. 
For many weary moons before we came, 
This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 
Would tend upon you. To your question now. 
Which touches on the workman and his work. 
Let there be light and there was light : 'tis so : 
For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 
And all creation is one act at once. 
The birth of light : but we that are not all, 
As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 310 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 
One act a phantom of succession : thus 
Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow Time ; 
But in the shadow will we work, and mould 
The woman to the fuller day.' 

She spake 
With kindled eyes : we rode a league beyond. 
And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the crag, 
Full of all beauty. ' how sweet,' I said 
(For I was half-oblivious of my mask), 320 

' To linger here with one that loved us.' ' Yea,' 
She answer'd, ' or with fair philosophies 
That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns. 
Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 



78 THE PBINCESS: [part hi. 

The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 

Built to the sun : ' then, turning to her maids, 

* Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 

Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised 

A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 

With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood. 

Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek. 

The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquer'd there 

The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns. 

And all the men mourn' d at his side : but we 

Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 

With Psyche, with Melissa Plorian, I 

With mine affianced. Many a little hand 

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks. 

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 340 

In the dark crag : and then we turn'd, we wound 

About the cliffs, the copses, out and in. 

Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. 

Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun 

Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all 

The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 



The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky. 

They faint on hill or .field or river : 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
And grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 



80 THE PRINCESS: [part 



IV. 

' There sinks tlie nebulous star we call the sun, 

If that hypothesis of theirs be sound/ 

Said Ida ; ' let us down and rest ; ' and we 

Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 

By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 

Bropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below 

Ko bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent, 

Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me. 

Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand. 

And blissful palpitations in the blood, lo 

Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in, 
There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 
Our elbows : on a tiipod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber Avine, and gold. 

Then she, ' Let some one sing to us ; lightlier move 
The minutes fledged with music : ' and a maid, 
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. 20 

' Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in tlie heart, and gatlier to the eyes, 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 81 

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

' Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 30 

' Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

' Dear as remember'd kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign' d 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
Deep as first love, and wild wdth all regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.' 40 

She ended with such passion that the tear 
She sang of shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom : but with some disdain 
Answer'd the Princess, ' If indeed there haunt 
About the moulder'd lodges of the past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool 
And so pace by : but thine are fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness ; nor is it 

Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, so 

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be. 
While down the streams that float us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, 



82 THE PBINCESS: pakt 

Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 

Becomes a cloud : for all things serve their time 

Toward that great year of equal mights and rights ; 

Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 

Eound golden : let the past be past ; let be 

Their cancelPd Babels : tho' the rough kex break 

The Starr 'd mosaic, and the beard-blown goat 6o 

Hang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split 

Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 

A trumpet in the distance pealing news 

Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 

Above the unrisen morrow : ' then to me, 

^ Know you no song of your own land,' she said, 

*Not such as moans about the retrospect. 

But deals with the other distance, and the hues 

Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine ? ' 

Then I remember'd one myself had made, 70 

What time I watch'd the swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, and part 
Now while I sang ; and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 



* O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flyiug South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 

' O tell her. Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 83 

* O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 

And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 

' O were I thou that she might take me in, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
"Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

* Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 

To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 

' O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown : 90 

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

* O tell her, brief is life but love is long. 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

* O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 

Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' 



I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, loo 

Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, 
And knew not what they meant ; for still my voice 
Eang false : but smiling, ' Not for thee,' she said, 
' Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, maid. 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass : and this 
A mere love-poem ! for such, my friend. 
We hold them slight : they mind us of the time 



84 THE PRINCESS: [pakt 

When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, no 

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, 

And dress the victim to the offering up. 

And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 

And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 

Poor soul ! I had a maid of honor once ; 

She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 

A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 

So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song 

Used to great ends : ourself have often tried 120 

Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 

The passion of the prophetess ; for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 

Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 

Love is it ? Would this same mock-love, and this 

Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, 

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 

Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered 

Whole in ourselves, and owed to none. Enough ! 130 

But now, to leaven play with profit, you. 

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil. 

That gives the manners of your countrywomen ? ' 

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head, with eyes 
Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had wrought, 



IV.] A MEDLEY, 85 

Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 

To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 

Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences i4o 

Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 

I frowning ; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook ; 

The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows ; 

^Forbear,' the Princess cried; ^Forbear, Sir,^ I; 

And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 

I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; 

There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 

Melissa clamor'd, ' Flee the death ; ' ^ To horse,' 

Said Ida ; ' home ! to horse ! ' and fled, as flies 

A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk 150 

When some one batters at the dovecote-doors. 

Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart. 

In the pavilion : there like parting hopes 

I heard them passing from me : hoof by hoof. 

And every hoof a knell to my desires, 

Clang'd on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 

^ The Head, the Head, the Princess, the Head ! ' 

For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd 

In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom : ico 

There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branch 

Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave, 

Xo more ; but woman-vested as I was 

Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; then 

Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 

The weight of all the hopes of half the world, 



86 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 
Was half-disrooted from his place, and stoop'd 
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave, 
Mid-channel. Eight on this we drove and caught, no 
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
My burthen from mine arms ; they cried ^ She lives : ' 
They bore her back into the tent : but I, 
So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
Nor found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft i80 

Than beelike instinct hive ward, found at length 
The garden portals. Two great statues. Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 
Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns. 
Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, loo 

Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks. 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue. 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 87 

I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
Disturb'd me with the doubt * If this were she ; ' 
But it was Florian. ' Hist, hist,' he said, 
' They seek us : out so late is out of rules. 200 

Moreover, '^ Seize the strangers " is the cry. 
How came you here ? ' I told him : ' I,' said he, 
' Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 
To whom none spake, half -sick at heart, return'd. 
Arriving all confused among the rest. 
With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 
And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath 
The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw. 
Girl after girl was call'd to trial : each 
Disclaim'd all knowledge of us : last of all, 210 

Melissa : trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
She, question'd if she knew us men, at first 
Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not : 
And then, demanded if her mother knew. 
Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or denied : 
From Avhence the Royal mind, familiar with her. 
Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 
Eor Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 
Por Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; 
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 220 

And I slipt out : but whither will you now ? 



88 THE PRINCESS: [part 

And where are Psyche, Cyril ? both are fled : 
What if together ? That were not so well. 
Would rather we had never come ! I dread 
His wildness, and the chances of the dark.' 

' And yet,' I said, ^ you wrong him more than I 
That struck him : this is proper to the clown, — 
Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, — 
To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 
That which he says he loves : for Cyril, howe'er 230 

He deal in frolic, as to-night, — the song 
Might have been worse, and sinn'd in grosser lips 
Beyond all pardon, — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surface are not he. 
He has a solid base of temperament : 
But as the water-lily starts and slides 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he.' 

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, ' Names : ' 240 

He, standing still, was clutch'd ; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains : fleet I was of foot : 
Before me shower'd the rose in flakes ; behind 
I heard the puff'd pursuer ; at mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not : 
And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 89 

At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine 

That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 250 

And falling on my face was caught and known. 

They haled us to the Princess, where she sat 
High in the hall : above her droop'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head. 
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men. 
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock ; 261 

Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
An advent to the throne : and therebeside. 
Half -naked as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 
Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 270 

Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

' It was not thus, Princess, in old days : 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips : 



90 THE PRINCESS: [part 

I led you then to all the Castalies ; 

I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 

I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 

Your second mother : those were gracious times. 

Then came your new friend : you began to change, — 

I saw it and grieved, — to slacken and to cool ; 280 

Till taken with her seeming openness 

You turn'd your warmer currents all to her ; 

To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 

Yet I bore up, in part from ancient love, 

And partly that I hoped to win you back, 

And partly conscious of my own deserts, 

And partly that you were my civil head. 

And chiefly you were born for something great, 

In which I might your fellow-worker be, 

When time should serve. And thus a noble scheme 290 

Grew up from seed we tAvo long since had sown ; 

In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd. 

Up in one night and due to sudden sun : 

We took this palace ; but even from the first 

You stood in your own light and darken'd mine. 

What student came but that you planed her path 

To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 

A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 

I your old friend and tried, she new in all ? 

But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean ; 300 

Yet I bore up in hope she Avould be known : 

Then came these wolves : they knew her : thef/ endured. 

Long-closeted Avith her the yestermorn, 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 91 

To tell her what they were, and she to hear : 

And me none told : not less to an eje like mine, 

A lidless watcher of the pnblic weal, 

Last night their mask was patent, and my foot 

Was to yoLi : but I thought again : I fear'd 

To meet a cold " We thank you, we shall hear of it 

From Lady Psyche : '^ you had gone to her, 310 

She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 

No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 

In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 

Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 

Were all miscounted as malignant haste 

To push my ri\^al out of place and power. 

But public use required she should be known ; 

And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 

I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 

I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well, 320 

Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 

And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 

I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 

Ridden to the hills, she likewise : now, I thought. 

That surely she will speak ; if not, then I : 

Did she ? These monsters blazon'd what they were. 

According to the coarseness of their kind. 

For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) 

And full of cowardice and guilty shame — 

I grant in her some sense of shame — she flies 330 

And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 

I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 



92 THE PRINCESS: [part 

I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 
And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast : 
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 
Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
For every gust of chance, and men will say 
We did not know the real light, but chased 
The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread. 

She ceased : the Princess answer'd coldly, ' Good : 
Your oath is broken : we dismiss you : go. 341 

For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child). 
Our mind is changed : we take it to our self.' 

Thereat the Lady stretch'd a vulture throat, 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
' The plan was mine. I built the nest,' she said, 
' To hatch the cuckoo. Eise ! ' and stoop'd to updrag 
Melissa : she, half on her mother propt, 
Half -drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 
A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 350 

Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
A Niobean daughter, one arm out. 
Appealing to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 
We gazed upon her came a little stir 
About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 
A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 
Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 93 

Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 

Delivering seal'd dispatches, which the Head seo 

Took half -amazed, and in her lion's mood 

Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 

Regarding, while she read, till over brow 

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 

As of some fire against a stormy cloud. 

When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 

Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 

For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast, 

Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 

Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 370 

In the dead hush the papers that she held 

Rustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet 

Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; 

The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire ; she crush'd 

The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 

As if to speak, but, utterance failing her. 

She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say 

' Read,' and I read — two letters — one her sire's : 

' Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, sso 
We, conscious of what temper you are built. 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night. 
You lying close upon his territory, 
Slipt round and in the dark invested you ; 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son.' 



94 THE PRINCESS: [part 

The second was my father's, running thus : 
^ You have our son : touch not a hair of his head 
Render him up unscathed : give him your hand : 
Cleave to your contract : tho' indeed we hear 390 

You hold the woman is the better man ; 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their Lords 
Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
That Ave this night should pluck your palace down ; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole.' 

So far I read ; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously : 

' not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope 400 

The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your precinct ; not a- scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be : hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock, a life 
Less mine than yours : my nurse would tell me of you ; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, 
Vague brightness ; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 
From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 4io 

Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 
And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 
With Ida, Ida, Ida rang the woods ; 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 95 

The leader wildswan in among the stars 

Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light 

The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 

Because I would have reach'd you, had you been 

Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 

Persephone in Hades, now at length, 

Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 420 

A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 

Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 

noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
On you, their centre : let me say but this, 
That many a famous man and woman, town 
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 

The dwarfs of presage : tlio' when known, there grew 

Another kind of beauty in detail 

Made them worth knowing ; but in you I found 

My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 430 

And mastered, while that after-beauty makes 

Such head from act to act, from hour to hour. 

Within me, that except you slay me here, 

According to your bitter statute-book, 

1 cannot cease to follow you, as they say 
The seal does music ; who desire you more 
Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips. 
With many thousand matters left to do, 

The breath of life ; more than poor men wealth, 
Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — but 
half 440 

Without you ; with you, whole ; and of those halves 



96 THE PRINCESS: [part 

You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
Yet that I came not all unauthorized, 
Behold your father's letter.' 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 
Unopen'd at her feet : a tide of fierce 450 

Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips, 
As waits a river level with the dam, 
Eeady to burst and flood the world with foam : 
And so she would have spoken, but there rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
Gather'd together : from the illumined hall 
Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes. 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, 
And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 46o 

Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale. 
All open-mouth' d, all gazing to the light. 
Some crying there was an army in the land, 
And some that men were in the very walls, 
And some they cared not ; till a clamor grew 
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built. 
And worse-confounded : high above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 97 

Xot peace she look'd, the Head : but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 470 

To the open window moved, remaining there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves 
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and calPd 
Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. 

' What fear ye, brawlers ? am not I your Head ? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks : / dare 
All these male thunderbolts : what is it ye fear ? 
Peace ! there are those to avenge us, and they come : 480 
If not, — myself were like enough, girls, 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war. 
Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause. 
Die : yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 
Six thousand years of fear have made you that 
From which I would redeem you : but for those 
That stir this hubbub — you and you — I know 
Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow morn 
We .hold a great convention : then shall they 490 

That love their voices more than duty, learn 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 
iSTo wiser than their mothers, household stuff. 
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame. 
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, 
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, 



98 THE P BIN CESS: [paet 

AVhose brains are in tlieir hands and in their heels, 

But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 

To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour. 

For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.' 500 

She, ending, waved her hands : thereat the crowd 
Muttering, dissolved : then with a smile that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff. 
When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : 

' You have done well, and like a gentleman, 
And like a prince : you have our thanks for all : 
And you look well too in your woman's dress : 
Well have you done, and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life : we owe you bitter thanks : 510 

Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you both ? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be. 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 

would I had his sceptre for one hour ! 

You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd 
Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us — 

1 wed with thee ! I bound by precontract 520 
Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 

That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown. 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 



IV.] A MEDLEY. 99 

Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us : 
I trample on your offers and on you : 
Begone : we will not look upon you more. 
Here, push them out at gates.' 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd 
Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 530 

But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands. 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 

We cross'd the street, and gain'd a petty mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt :' 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts ; 
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 540 

The jest and earnest Avorking side by side, 
The cataract and the tumult and the kings 
Were shadows ; and the long fantastic nigh 
With all its doings had and had not been, 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
Not long ; I shook it off ; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadow ings, I was one 



100 THE PRINCESS. [part iv. 

To whom the touch of all mischance but came 550 

As night to him that sitting on a hill 

Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 

Set into sunrise : then we moved away. 



INTERLUDE.] A MEDLEY. 101 



INTERLUDE. 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands: 
A moment, while the trumpets blow, 

He sees his brood about thy knee; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe. 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 



So Lilia sang : we thouglit her half-possess'd, 

She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; lo 

And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 

The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 

Like one that wishes at a dance to change 

The music — clapt her hands and cried for war, 

Or some grand fight to kill and make an end : 

And he that next inherited the tale 

Half turning to the broken statue, said, 

' Sir Ralph has got your colors : if I prove 

Your knight, and fight your battle, Avhat for me ? ' 

It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 20 

Lay by her, like a model of her hand. 

She took it and she flung it. ' Fight,' she said, 



102 THE PRINCESS [interlude. 

^ And make us all we would be, great and good/ 
He knightlike in his- caj) instead of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall, 
Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince. 



PAKT v.] A MEDLEY. 103 



V. 

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
And ' Stand, who goes ? ' ' Two from the palace,' I. 
' The second two : they wait,' he said ; ' pass on ; 
His Highness wakes : ' and one that clash'd in arms. 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led. 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light lo 

Dazed me half -blind : I stood and seem'd to hear, 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies. 
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear ; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death. 
Unmeasured mirth ; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth, 
The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 20 

And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears. 



104 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Panted from weary sides, ' King, you are free ! 

We did but keep you surety for our son, 

If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thou, 

That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge : ' 

For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, 

More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath, 

And all one rag ; disprinced from head to heel. 

Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 30 

A whisper'd jest to some one near him, ' Look, 

He has been among his shadows.' ' Satan take 

The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 

Roar'd) make yourself a man to fight with men. 

Go : Cyril told us all.' 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded woman-slough 
To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 40 

Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us. 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon ask'd and given 
For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
Follow'd his tale. Amazed he fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping : ' Then we fell 
Into your father's hand, and there she lies, 
But will not speak, nor stir.' 



v.] A MEDLEY. 105 

He show'd a tent 50 

A stone-shot off : we enter'd in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak. 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 
And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal. 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay : 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood. 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 

Then Florian knelt, and ' Come,' he whisper'd to her, 
' Lift up your head, sweet sister : lie not thus. 61 

What have you done but right ? you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince : look up : be comforted : 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought, 
When fallen in darker ways.' And likewise I: 
' Be comforted : have I not lost her too, 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me ? ' She heard, she moved, 
She moan'd, a folded voice ; and up she sat. 
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 70 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 
In deathless marble. ' Her,' she said, ' my friend — 
Parted from her — betray 'd her cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe ? Why kept ye not your faith ? 
base and bad ! What comfort ? none for me ! ' 
To whom remorseful Cyril, * Yet I pray 



106 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Take comfort : live, dear lady, for your child ! ' 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried : 

^ Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more ! so 

For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; 
And either she will die from want of care, 
Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say 
" The child is hers " — for every little fault, 
'^ The child is hers ; " and they will beat my girl 
Remembering her mother : my flower ! 
Or they will take her, they will make her hard, 
And she will pass me by in after-life 
With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 
Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 90 

To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 
The horror of the shame among them all : 
But I will go and sit beside the doors. 
And make a wild petition night and day, 
Until they hate to hear me like a wind 
Wailing for ever, till they open to me, 
And lay my little blossom at my feet. 
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 
And I will take her up and go my way. 
And satisfy my soul with kissing her : 100 

Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me 
Who gave me back my child ? ' ^ Be comforted,' 
Said Cyril, ' You shall have it : ' but again 
She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so. 



v.] A MEDLEY. 107 

Like tender things that being caught feign death, 
Spoke not, nor stirrd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp, and inward raced the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at parle : and ' Look you,' cried 
My father, 'that our compact be fulfill'd : in 

You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at you and man : 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him : 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire ; 
She yields, or war.' 

Then Gama turn'd to me : 
' We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl : and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large 
How say you, war or not ? ' 

' Not war, if possible, 
king,' I said, 'lest from the abuse of war, 120 

The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 
The smouldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 
At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it, 
And every face she look'd on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot 
By gentleness than war. I want her love. 130 



108 THE PRINCESS: [part 

What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 

Your cities into shards with catapults ? 

She would not love ; — or brought her chain'd, a slave, 

The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord ? 

Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 

The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance 

Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 

And crushed to death : and rather. Sire, than this 

I would the old God of war himself were dead, 

Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 140 

Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 

Or like an old-world mammoth, bulk'd in ice. 

Not to be molten out.' 

And roughly spake 
My father, ' Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
Boy, when T hear you prate I almost think 
That idiot legend credible. Look you. Sir ! 
Man is the hunter ; woman is his game : 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150 

Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for shame ! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do ; 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Flatter'd and fluster'd ; wins, tho' dash'd with death 
He reddens what he kisses : thus I won 



v.] A MEDLEY. 109 

Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 

Worth winning ; but this firebrand — gentleness leo 

To such as her ! If Cyril spake her true, 

To catch a dragon in a cherry net, 

To trip a tigress with a gossamer. 

Were wisdom to it.' 

'Yea, but Sire,' I cried, 
' Wild nature needs wise curbs. The soldier ? No : 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier ? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in extremes, 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the death, no 

ISTo, not the soldier's : yet I hold her, king. 
True woman : but you clash them all in one, 
That have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. 
And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, 
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need 
More breadth of culture : is not Ida right ? i80 

They worth it ? truer to the law within ? 
Severer in the logic of a life ? 
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 
Of earth and heaven ? And she of whom you speak. 
My mother, looks as whole as some serene 
Creation minted in the golden moods 



110 THE P BINGES S: [pakt 

Of sovereign artists ; not a tliouglit, a touch, 

But pure as lines of green that streak the white 

Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; I say, 

Not like the piebald miscellany, man, 190 

Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, 

But whole and one : and take them all-in-all. 

Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind. 

As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 

Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 

As dues of Nature. To our point : not war ; 

Lest I lose all.' 

''Nay, nay, you spake but sense,' 
Said Gama. ' We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blovv^s. 200 

You talk almost like Ida : she can talk ; 
And there is something in it, as you say : 
But you talk kindlier : we esteem you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter : for the rest. 
Our own detention, Avhy, the causes weigh'd. 
Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 210 

You did but come as goblins in the night. 
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head, 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking-maid, 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream : 



v.] A MEDLEY. Ill 

But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 

He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 

And speak with Arac : Arac's word is thrice 

As ours with Ida : something may be done — 

I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 

You likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 220 

Follow us : who knows ? we four may build some plan 

Foursquare to opposition.' 

Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growPd 
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard. 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 230 

In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed 
All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode ; 
And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
Gathered by night and peace, with each light air 
On our mail'd heads : but other thoughts than peace 
Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled squares. 
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers 
With clamor : for among them rose a cry 
As if to greet the king ; they made a halt ; 
The horses yell'd ; they clash'd their arms ; the drum 
Beat ; merrily-blowing shrill'd the martial fife ; 2-n 



112 THE PRINCESS: [pakt 

And in the blast and bray of the long horn 

And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 

The banner. Anon to meet us lightly pranced 

Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 

Such thews of men : the midmost and the highest 

Was Arac : all about his motion clung 

The shadow of his sister, as the beam 

Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 

Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, 250 

That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 

And as, the fiery Sirius alters hue. 

And bickers into red and emerald, shone 

Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
War-music, felt the blind wild-bfeast of force, 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man, 
Stir in me as to strike : then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all : 260 

A common light of smiles at our disguise 
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 
Had labor'd down within his ample lungs. 
The genial giant, Arac, roll'd himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words : 

' Our land invaded, 'sdeath ! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war : 
And, 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no ? 



v.] A MEDLEY. 113 

But then this question of your troth remains : 

And there's a downright honest meaning in her ; 270 

She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 

She ask'd but space and fair-play for her scheme ; 

She prest and prest it on me — I myself, 

What know I of these things ? but, life and soul ! 

I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs ; 

I say she flies too high ; 'sdeath ! what of that ? 

I take her for the flower of womankind, 

And so I often told her, right or wrong. 

And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves, 

And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all, 280 

I stand upon her side : she made me swear it — 

'Sdeath — and with solemn rites by candle-light — 

Swear by St. something — I forget her name — 

Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men ; 

She was a princess too ; and so I swore. 

Come, this is all ; she will not : wave your claim : 

If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 

Decides it, 'sdeath ! against my father's will.' 

I lagg'd in answer, loth to render up 
My precontract, and loth by brainless war 290 

To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
And fingering at the hair about his lip. 
To prick us on to combat, ' Like to like ! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.' 
A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow ! 



114 THE PRINCESS: [part 

For fiery -short was Cyril's counter-scoff, 

And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the point 

Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 

' Decide it here : why not ? we are three to three.' soo 

Then spake the third : ' But three to three ? no more ? 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
More, more, for honor : every captain waits 
Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die.' 
' Yes,' answer'd I, ' for this wild wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds — this honor, if ye will. 310 

It needs must be for honor if at all : 
Since, what decision ? if we fail, we fail. 
And if we win, we fail : she would not keep 
Her compact.' ' 'Sdeath ! but we will send to her,' 
Said Arac, ' worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue : let our missive thro'. 
And you shall have her answer by the word.' 

' Boys ! ' shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
Regarded ; neither seem'd there more to say : 320 

Back rode we to ray father's camp, and found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 



v.] A MEDLEY. 115 

Or by denial flush her babbling wells 

With her own people's life : three times he went : 

The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd : 

He batter'd at the doors ; none came : the next. 

An awful voice within had warn'd him thence : 

The third, and those eight daughters of the plough 

Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair, 330 

And so belabor'd him on rib and cheek 

They made him wild : not less one glance he caught 

Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 

Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 

Tho' compass 'd by two armies and the noise 

Of arms ; and standing like a stately pine 

Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 

When storm is on the heights, and right and left, 

Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills, roll 

The torrents, dash'd to the vale : and yet her will 340 

Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a cry : 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads ; 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur ; 
And many a bold knight started up in heat, 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 350 



116 THE PRINCESS [part 

All on this side the palace, ran the field 
Flat to the garden-wall : and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A column'd entry shone, and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
But now fast barr'd : so here upon the flat 
All that long morn the lists were hammer'd up, 
And all that morn the heralds to and fro. 
With message and defiance, went and came ; 360 

Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 
But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it, and I read : 

' brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
What heats of indignation, when we heard 
Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet ; 
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 
Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; 
Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of those, — 
Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 371 

Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 
Made for all noble motion : and I saw 
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 
With smoother men : the old leaven leaven'd all : 
Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, 
No woman named : therefore I set my face 



v.] A MEDLEY. 117 

Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 

Far off from men I built a fold for them : 380 

I stored it full of rich memorial : 

I fenced it round with gallant institutes, 

And biting laws to scare the beasts of -piej : 

And prosper'd ; till a rout of saucy boys 

Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace ; 

Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what 

Of insolence and love, some pretext held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 

Seal'd not the bond — the striplings ! — for their sport ! 

I tamed my leopards : shall I not tame these ? 390 

Or you ? or I ? for since you think me touch'd 

In honor — what, I would not aught of false - 

Is not our cause pure ? and whereas I know 

Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 

You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 

What end soever : fail you will not. Still, 

Take not his life : he risk'd it for my own ; 

His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do. 

Fight and fight well ; strike and strike home. dear 

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 400 

The sole men to be mingled with our cause. 

The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime. 

Your very armor hallow'd, and your statues 

Kear'd, sung to, when, this gad-fly brush'd aside. 

We plant a solid foot into the Time, 

And mould a generation strong to move 

With claim on claim from right to right, till she 



118 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself ; 

And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 

And, ever following those two crowned twins, 410 

Commerce and Conquest, shower the fiery grain 

Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 

Between the Northern and the Southern morn/ 

Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest : 
^ See that there be no traitors in your camp ; 
We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
Since our arms fail'd. — This Egypt-plague of men ! 
Almost our maids were better at their homes, 
Than thus man-girdled here : indeed, I think 
Our chief est comfort is the little child 420 

Of one unworthy mother ; which she left : 
She shall not have it back : the child shall grow 
To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
This morning ; there the tender orphan hands 
Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 
The wrath I nursed against the world : farewell.' 

I ceased ; he said, ' Stubborn, but she may sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms. 
And breed up warriors ! See now — tho' yourself 430 
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense — the spindling king, 
This Gama, swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up. 



v.] A MEDLEY. 119 

And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 

As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 

Man for the field and woman for the hearth : 

Man for the sword and for the needle she : 

Man with the head and woman with the heart : 

Man to command and woman to obey ; 440 

All else confusion. Look you ! the gray mare 

Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 

From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 

Shrinks in his arm-chair, while the fires of hell 

Mix with his hearth : but you — she's yet a colt — 

Take, break her : strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd, 

She might not rank with those detestable 

That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 

Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. 

They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance : 450 

/ like her none the less for rating at her ! 

Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 

Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 

The bearing and the training of a child 

Is woman's wisdom.' 

Thus the hard old king : 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : 
I pored upon her letter which I held. 
And on the little clause ' Take not his life : ' 
I mused on that wild morning in the woods, 46o 

And on the ' Follow, follow, thou shalt win : ' 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 



120 THE P BIN CESS: [part 

And how the strange betrothment was to end : 

Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 

That one should fight with shadows and should fall ; 

And like a flash the weird affection came : 

King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows ; 

I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts, 

And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, 

To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 470 

And ere I woke it was the point of noon ; 

The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed 

We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 

Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 

At the barrier like a wild horn in the land 

Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 

The trumpet, and again : at which the storm 

Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 

And riders front to front, until they closed 

In conflict, with the crash of shivering points, 480 

And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream I dream'd 

Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 

Part sat like rocks : part reel'd, but kept their seats : 

Part roll'd on the earth, and rose again, and drew : 

Part stumbled, mixt with floundering horses. Down 

Prom those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 

Prom Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 

The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 490 

He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 



v.] A MEDLEY. 121 

And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield — 

Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 

With hammers ; till I thought, ' Can this be he 

From Gama's dwarfish loins ? if this be so, 

The mother makes us most ' — and in my dream 

I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 

Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes. 

And highest, among the statues, statue-like, 

Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 500 

With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 

A single band of gold about her hair, 

Like a Saint's glory up in heaven : but she 

No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 

Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight. 

Yea, let her see me fall ! With that I drave 

Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 

And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream 

All that I would. But that large-moulded man. 

His visage all agrin as at a wake, 510 

Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back 

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 

As comes a pillar of electric cloud. 

Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 

And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits. 

And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 

Keels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 

Gave way before him : only Florian, he 

That loved me closer than his own right eye, 520 



122 TUE PBINCESS. [pakt v. 

Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down : 

And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 

With Psyche's color round his helmet ; tough, 

Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 

But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 

And threw him : last I spurr'd ; I felt my veins 

Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, 

And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung. 

Till I struck out and shouted ; the blade glanced, 

I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 530 

Plow'd from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell. 



Home they brought her warrior dead: 
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: 

All her maidens, watching, said, 
' She must weep or she will die.' 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Call'd him worthy to be loved. 

Truest friend and noblest foe; 
Yet she neither spake nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place. 
Lightly to the warrior stept, 

Took the face-cloth from the face; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years. 
Set his child upon her knee — 

Like summer tempest came her tears 
* Sweet my child, I live for thee.' 



124 THE PRINCESS: [part 



VI. 

r 

My dream had never died, or lived again, 
As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said to me. 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange ; 
That when our side was vanquish'd, and my cause 
For ever lost, there went up a great cry, 
' The Prince is slain ! ' My father heard, and ran lo 
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
And grovell'd on my body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen: the seed, 
The little seed they laugh 'd at in the dark. 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 20 

A thousand arms, and rushes to the sun. 

* Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : they came ; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 125 

A noise of songs they would not understand : 
They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 
And would have strown it, and are fallen themselves. 

' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : they came, 
The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
But we will make it faggots for the hearth. 
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 3q 

And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen : they struck ; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms. 
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 

' Our enemies have fallen, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breath 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power: and roll'd 
"With music in the growing breeze of Time, 40 

The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world.' 

^ And now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
To break tbem more, in their behoof whose arms 
Champion'd our cause and won it with a day 
Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast. 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 50 

Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come, 
AYe will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 



126 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality/ 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
A hundred maids in train across the park. eo 

Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came. 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest : by them went 
The enamor'd air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 
And over them the tremulous isles of light 
Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 
At distance followed : so they came : anon 
Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 
That holds a stately fretwork to the sun, 70 

And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 
Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 
The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stay'd ; 
Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 
Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers. 
And happy warriors, and immortal names ; 
And said, ' You shall not lie in the tents, but here. 
And nursed by those for whom you fought ; and served 
With female hands and hospitality.' so 

Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance. 
She past my way. Up started from my side 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 127 

The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, 

Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 

Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 

Cold even to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 

The haggard father's face and reverend beard 

Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 

Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 

Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 90 

A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 

^ He saved my life : my brother slew him for it.' 

No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 

Drew from my neck the painting and the tress. 

And held them up : she saw them, and a day 

Eose from the distance on her memory. 

When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 

With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 

And then once more she look'd at my pale face : 

Till, understanding all the foolish work loo 

Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, 

Her iron will was broken in her mind ;• 

Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 

She bow'd, she set the child on the earth ; she laid 

A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 

< Sire,' she said, ^he lives : he is not dead : 

O let me have him with ni}- brethren here 

In our own palace : we will tend on him 

Like one of these ; if so, by any means. 

To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make no 

Our progress falter to the woman's goal.' 



128 THE PRINCESS: [part 

She said : but at the happy word ' He lives/ 
My father stoop' d, re-father 'd o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes, above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like night and evening, mixt 
Their dark and gray : while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze" and golden brede, 
Lay like a new-fallen meteor on the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother, and began 120 

A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamoring out ' Mine — mine — not 

yours. 
It is not yours, but mine : give me the child ! ' 
Ceased all on tremble : piteous was the cry : 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd. 
And turn'd each face her way : wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
Ked grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 130 

And down dead-heavy sank her curls ; and half 
The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 
The laces toward her babe : but she nor cared 
Nor knew it, clamoring on ; till Ida heard, 
Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 
Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
The mother, me, the child ;, but he that lay 
Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 
Trail'd himself up on one knee : then he drew 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 129 

Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd i-io 

At the arm'd man sideways, pitying, as it seem'd, 

Or self -involved ; but when she learnt his face, 

Eemembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 

Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 

Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 

When the tide ebbs in sunshine ; and he said : 

^ fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! — 
But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 150 

We vanquish' d, you the victor of your will. 
What would you more ? Give her the child ! remain 
Orb'd in your isolation : he is dead. 
Or all as dead : henceforth we let you be : 
Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 
Lest, where you seek the common love of these. 
The common hate with the revolving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 
Break from a darken'd future, crown'd with fire, 
And tread you out for ever : but howsoe'er leo 

Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 
To hold your own, deny not hers to her : 
Give her the child ! if, I say, you keep 
One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 
The breast that fed or arm that dandled you. 
Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer. 
Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it. 



130 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours, 

Or speak to her, your dearest, — her one fault 

The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, — no 

Give vie it : /will give it her.' 

He said : 
At first her eye with slow dilation roll'd 
Dry flame, she listening ; after sank and sank. 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child ; she took it : * Pretty bud ! 
Lily of the vale ! half open'd bell of the woods ! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance ; mystery. 
Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; iso 

These men are hard upon us as of old. 
We two must part : and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
In the dead prime : but may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 
Gentle as freedom ' — here she kiss'd it : then — 
' All good go with thee ! take it, Sir,' and so loo 

Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 
Who turn'd half-round to Psyche, as she sprang 
To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; 
Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot. 
And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough. 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 131 

And in her hnnger mouth'd and mumbled it, 

And hid her bosom with it ; after that 

Put on more calm, and added suppliantly : , 

' We two were friends : I go to mine own land 
For ever : find some other : as for me, 200 

I scarce am fit for your great plans : yet speak to me ; 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.' 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac : ' Ida — 'sdeath ! you blame the man ; 
You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
I am your warrior : I and mine have fought 
Your battle : kiss her, take her hand ; she weeps : 
'Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it.' 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground ; 210 

And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : 

' I've heard that there is iron in the blood. 
And I believe it. Not one word ? not one ? 
Whence drew you this steel temper ? not from me, 
Not from your mother, now a saint Avith saints. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it : 
" Our Ida has a heart : " just ere she died : 
" But see that some one with authority 
Be near her still ; " and I — I sought for one — 220 



132 THE PRINCESS. [part 

All people said she had authority — 

The Lady Blanche : much profit ! Not one word ; 

No ! tho' your father sues : see how you stand 

Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maim'd ; 

I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 

For your wild whim : and was it then for this, 

Was it for this we gave our palace up, 

Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 

And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, ■ 

And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 230 

Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind ? 

Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom. 

When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 

Now had you got a friend of your own age, 

Now could you share your thought ; now should men see 

Two women faster welded in one love 

Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walk'd with, she 

You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 

Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 

And right ascension : Heaven knows what ; and now 240 

A word, but one, one little kindly word. 

Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint ! 

You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay. 

You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one ? 

You will not ? well — no heart have you, or such 

As fancies like the vermin in a nut 

Have fretted all to dust and bitterness.' 

So said the small king, moved beyond his wont. 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 133 

But Ida stood, nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 250 

Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept : 
Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still water : then brake out my sire, 
Lifting his grim head from my wounds : ' you. 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
And were half fool'd to let you tend our son. 
Because he might have wished it — but we see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven. 
And think that you might mix his draught with death. 
When your skies change again : the rougher hand 261 
Is safer : on to the tents : take up the Prince.' 

He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 

' Come hither, 

Psyche,' she cried out, ' embrace me, come. 
Quick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour : 

Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 270 

Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 
/ seem no more : / want forgiveness too : 

1 should have had to do with none but maids, 
That have no links with men. Ah false but dear. 
Dear traitor, too much loved, why ? — why ? — Yet see, 



134 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 
With all forgiveness, all oblivion. 
And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, Sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him. 
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 280 

This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it ; 
Taunt me no more : yourself and yours shall have 
Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth : 
What use to keep them here — now ? grant my prayer. 
Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 
From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 

Poor weakling even as they are.' 

Passionate tears 
Followed : the king replied not : Cyril said : 
' Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
Of your great head — for he is wounded too — 
That you may tend upon him with the prince.' 
^ Ay so,' said- Ida with a bitter smile, 
' Our laws are broken : let him enter too.' 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
Petition'd too for him. ' Ay so,' she said, ' soo 

' I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 135 

We break our laws with ease, but let it be.' 

' Ay so ? ' said Blanche : ' Amazed am I to hear 

Your Highness : but your Highness breaks with ease 

The law your Highness did not make : 'twas I. 

I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind. 

And block'd them out ; but these men came to woo 

Your Highness — verily I think to win.' 

So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye : 310 

But Ida, with a voice that like a bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn : 

' Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all ; 
Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit. 
Till the storm die ! — But had you stood by us, 
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 
Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 320 

But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
We brook no further insult, but are gone.' 

She turn'd ; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
Her brother came ; the king her father charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words : nor did mine own 
Refuse her proffer ; lastly gave his hand. 



136 THE PRINCESS. [part 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors : to them the doors gave way- 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 330 
The virgin marble under iron heels : 
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there 
Eested : but great the crush was, and each base, 
To left and right, of those tall columns, drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
Of female whisperers : at the further end 
Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 
Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear : but in the centre stood 
The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 340 
They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save 
When armor clash' d or jingled ; while the day. 
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 
A flying splendor out of brass and steel. 
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
Now flred an angry Pallas on the helm. 
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame ; 
And now and then an echo started up. 
And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 350 
Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : 
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries, past a hundred doors, 
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 



VI.] A MEDLEY. 137 

To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 

And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 

And chariot, many a maiden passing home 

Till happier times ; but some were left of those seo 

Held sages t ; and the great lords out and in, 

From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 

Walk'd at their will : and everything was changed. 



Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; 

But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give ? 

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; 

Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die ! 
Ask me no more, lest I should hid thee live; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: 
I strove against the stream, and all in vain: 
Let the great river take me to the main: 

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; 
Ask me no more. 



PAKT VII.] A MEDLEY. 139 



VII. 

So was their sanctuary violated, 

So their fair college turn'd to hospital ; 

At first with all confusion : by and by 

Sweet order lived again, with other laws : 

A kindlier influence reign'd ; and everywhere 

Low voices, with the ministering hand, 

Hung round the sick : the maidens came, they talk'd, 

They sang, they read : till she not fair began 

To gather light, and she that was, became 

Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro lo 

With books, with flowers, with angel oflices. 

Like creatures native unto gracious act. 

And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell. 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies f aiPd ; seldom she spoke : but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female field : void was her use. 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 

O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, 



140 THE PBINCESS: [part 

And suck the blinding splendor from the sand, 
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world : so fared she gazing there ; 
So blacken' d all her world in secret, blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain ; till down she came, 
And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

And twilight dawn'd ; and morn by morn the lark 30 
Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the muffled cage of life : 
And twilight gloom'd ; and broader-grown the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 
Deeper than those Aveird doubts could reach me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian : with her oft 40 

Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court-favor : here and there the small bright head, 
A light of healing, glanced about the couch. 
Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
The sting from pain ; nor seem'd it strange that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair charities 50 



VII.] A MEDLEY. 141 

Join'd at her side ; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love, 
Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 
And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd 
At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields 
She needs must wed him for her own good name ; 
Not tho' he built upon the babe restored ; 60 

Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little fiush'd, and she past on ; but each 
Assumed from thence a half -consent involved 
In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flying struck 70 

With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim. 
Nor did mine own, now reconciled ; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat : 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 



142 THE PRINCESS: [part 

Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, 

And fling it like a viper off, and shriek, 

' You are not Ida ; ' clasp it once again, so 

And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, - 

And call her sweet, as if in irony. 

And call her hard and cold, which seem'd a truth : 

And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 

And often she believed that I should die : 

Till out of long frustration of her care. 

And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons. 

And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 

Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd 

On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 90 

And out of memories of her kindlier days, 

And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 

And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 

And out of hauntings of my spoken love. 

And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 

And often feeling of the helpless hands. 

And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek — 

From all, a closer interest flourish'd up. 

Tenderness touch by touch ; and last, to these, 

Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 100 

By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first 

And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 

But such as gather'd color day by day. 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
For weakness : it was evening : silent light 



VII.] A MEDLEY. 143 

Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 

Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 

The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 

At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 

The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest no 

A dwarf-like Cato cower'd. On the other side 

Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 

A train of dames : by axe and eagle sat. 

With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 

And half the wolf's-milk curdled in their veins. 

The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paused 

Hortensia pleading : angry was her face. 

I saw the forms : I knew not where I was : 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 
Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 120 

Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 
And rounder seem'd : I moved : I sigh'd : a touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun. 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 

' If you be what I think you, some sweet dream, 130 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself : 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 



144 THE PRINCESS: [part 

I ask you nothing : only, if a dream, 

Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 

Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.' 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, , 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends. 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she 

paused ; 
She stoop'd ; and out of languor leapt a cry ; i4o 

Leapt fiery passion from the brinks of death ; 
And I believed that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe. 
And left her woman : lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mould that other, when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 
And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she 150 

Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 
For worship without end : nor end of mine. 
Stateliest, for thee ! But mute she glided forth. 
Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
FilPd thro' and thro' with love, a happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held 



VII.] A MEDLEY. 145 

A volume of the Poets of her land : 

There to herself, all in low tones, she read : leo 

' Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. 

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 170 

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me.' 

I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

'Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang). 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills ? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 180 

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine. 
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, he. 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize. 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
With Death and Morning on the silver horns. 



146 THE PIUNCESS: [pakt 

Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 190 

Nor find him dropt upon tlie firths of ice 

That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 

To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 

But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 

To find him in the valley; let the wild 

Lean-headed eagles yelp alone ; and leave 

The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 

That like a broken purjDose waste in air : 

So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 200 

Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 

Arise to thee ; the children call, and I, 

Thy shepherd, pipe, and sweet is every sound, 

Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 

And murmuring of innumerable bees.' 

So she low-toued ; while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening ; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face ; 
The bosom with long sighs labor'd ; and meek 210 

Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes ; 
And the voice trembled, and the hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility ; had fail'd in all ; 
That all her labor was but as a block 
Left in the quarry ; but she still were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself to one 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 220 

That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than i^ower 
In knowledge : something wild within her breast, 



VII.] A MEDLEY. 147 

A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
And she had nursed me there from week to week : 
Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl — 
' Ah fool, and made myself a queen of farce ! 
When comes another such ? never, I think. 
Till the sun drop, dead, from the Signs.' 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 231 

And her great heart thro' all the faultful past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 
Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, 
That early woke to feed her little ones, 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 

' Blame not thyself too much,' I said, ' nor blame 
Too much the sons of men, and barbarous laws ; 240 

These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free : 
For she that out of Lethe scales Avith man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable. 



148 THE PRINCESS: [part 

How shall men grow ? But work no more alone ! 250 

Our place is much : as far as in us lies 

We two will serve them both in aiding her — 

Will clear away the parasitic forms 

That seem to keep her up, but drag her down — 

Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 

Within her — let her make herself her own 

To give or keep, to live and learn and be 

All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 

For woman is not undevelopt man. 

But diverse : could we make her as the man, 260 

Sweet Love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they groAV ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world y 

She, mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man. 

Like perfect music unto noble words ; 270 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each. 

Distinct in individualities. 

But like each other even as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men : 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : 



VII. A MEDLEY. 149 

Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
May these things be ! ' 

Sighing she spoke : ' I fear 28o 
They will not.' 

' Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
Defect in each, and always thought in thought. 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
The single pure and perfect animal. 
The two-eel I'd heart beating, with one full stroke. 
Life.' 

And again sighing she spoke : ' A dream 290 

That once was mine ! what woman taught you this ? ' 

' Alone,' I said, ' from earlier than I know. 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
I loved the woman : he that doth not, lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 
Or pines in sad experience worse than death. 
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime : 
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
Not learned, save in gracious household ways, . 
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 300 

No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the Gods and men, 



150 THE PBINCESS: [pakt 

Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 

On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 

Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 

And girdled her with music. Happy he 

With such a mother ! faith in womankind 

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high sio 

Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with clay/ 

' But I,' 
Said Ida, tremulously, ' so all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words : 
This mother is your model. I have heard 
Of your strange doubts : they well might be ; I seem 
A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 
You cannot love me.' 

' Nay, but thee,' I said, 
* From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes. 
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 320 

Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forced 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood : now. 
Given back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee, 
Indeed I love : the new day comes, the light 
Dearer €or night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over : lift thine eyes ; my doubts are dead, 
My haunting sense of hollow shows : the change. 
This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 330 



VII.] A MEDLEY. 151 

Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ; 

Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 

In that fine air I tremble, all the past 

Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 

Is morn to more, and all the rich To-come 

Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 

Athwart the smoke of burning w^eeds. Forgive me, 

I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 

My wife, my life. we will walk this world, 

Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 340 

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 

That no man knows. Indeed I love thee : come. 

Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 

Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself ; 

Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.' 



152 THE PRINCESS: [epilogue. 



EPILOGUE. 

So closed oiir tale, of which I give you all 

The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 

The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceased 

There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 

' I wish she had not yielded ! ' then to me, 

' What if you drest it up poetically ! ' 

So pray'd the men, the women : I gave assent : 

Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of seven 

Together in one sheaf ? What style could suit ? 

The men required that I should give throughout lo 

The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque 

With w^hich we banter'd little Lilia first : 

The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 

For something in the ballads which they sang. 

Or in their silent influence as they sat. 

Had ever seem'd to wrestle w^th burlesque, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 

A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 

Kot make her true-heroic — true-sublime ? 20 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? 

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two. 

Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 



EPILOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 153 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 

And yet to give the story as it rose, 

I moved as in a strange diagonal, 

And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 30 

Had touch'd her ; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass ; 
She flung it from her, thinking : last, she fixt 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
' You — tell us what we are ; ' who might have told, 
For she was cramm'd with theories out of books. 
But that there rose a shout : the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming i^ow, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these : we climb'd 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 40 

The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 
Gray halls alone among their massive groves ; 
Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
Half-lost in belt of hop and breadths of wheat ; 
The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 
A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond. 
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 

' Look there, a garden ! ' said my college friend, 
The Tory member's elder son, ^and there ! 50 

God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 



15^ THE PRINCESS: [epilogue. 

And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 

A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 

Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 

Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 

Some patent force to change them when we will, 

Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 

But yonder, whiff ! there comes a sudden heat, 

The gravest citizen seems to lose his head ; 

The king is scared, the soldier will not fight ; 6o 

The little boys begin to shoot and stab : 

A kingdom topples over with a shriek 

Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 

In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 

Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 

No graver than a schoolboys' barring out ; 

Too comic for the solemn things they are. 

Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 

Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 

As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas ! 70 

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.' 

' Have patience,' I replied, 'ourselves are full 
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd. 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides.' 



EPILOGUE.] A MEDLEY. 155 

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, so 

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 
Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
A great broad-shoulder' d genial Englishman, 
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; 90 

Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn ; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
That stood the nearest — now address'd to speech : 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow : a shout rose again, and made 
The long line of the approaching rookery swerve 
From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 
Beyond the bourn of sunset ; 0, a shout 100 

More joyful than the city-roar that hails 
Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
To let the people breathe ? So thrice they cried, 
I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd : we sat 



156 TUE PRINCESS. [epilogue. 

But spoKe not, wrapt in nameless reverie, 

Perchance upon the future man : the walls 

Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, iic 

And gradually the powers of the night, 

That range above the region of the wind. 

Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 

Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds. 

Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly. 
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ealph 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. 



NOTES. 

[The starred notes are desigued for use in connection with a preliminary 
and more rapid reading of the poem.] 



PKOLOGUE. 

1. ' The scene of the introduction is the garden at Swainston, 
the seat of the late Sir John Simeon, in the Isle of Wight, and the 
host, Sir Walter Vivian, is Sir John Simeon himself ' (Waugh). 

2. lawns. Cf. CEnone, 6; Milton, L' Allegro, 71; for a use by 
Tennyson of this word in its commoner modern meaning, see 95 
below. 

5. The local People's Institute, with its half-social, half-educa- 
tional aims, was already (in 1847) a power in England. 

11. Greek, set with busts. It was a comparatively modem 
country-house, therefore, as this architectural style was not adopted 
in England until about the middle of the eighteenth century. 

12. lovelier than their names; their botanical names. 

15. Ammonites. Large fossils, with the appearance of coiled 
snakes. See Scott, Marmion, II. xiii. 

20. Laborious orient ivory. This is an unexampled instance 
of the artful adjustment of the sound to express the meaning. Note 
how accurately the complex ' sphere in sphere ' of the Eastern ivory- 
carver is represented by the recurrence of the rolling ori sound. 
The verse stripped of its consonants (except r) and its unimportant 
vowels, reduces itself to this : 6 | ri d | ri i | ory e | ri ere | . 

21. crease; written also creese and kris. 

38. broke. Note in 43 below, the alternate form brake. Ten- 
nyson also uses as parallel forms cleft and clove, sioam and swum, etc. 

55-6. sown with happy faces, etc. For a similar hendiadys, 
see VI. 66-7 below. 

157 



158 NOTES. [part 

63. steep-up. Shakespeare uses "both this and the contrasting 
form, steep-down. 
*66-7- Echo answered in her sleep from hollow fields; a 

beautiful and characteristic touch, hut — imagine the dainty classic 
nymph, 'Daughter of the Sphere,' waking to answer 'a man with 
knobs and wires and vials ' ! 

87-8. Mark the involved alliterative effect of these verses. 

90. satiated. We need to remember, in reading British verse, 
that the secondary accent which we give to so many words of four 
or five syllables is almost unknown in England. 

* 92. lighter than a fire. The airy delicacy of the ruin was more 
noticeable, it has been suggested, from its contrast with the massive 
strength of the mansion from which they had just come. * Some one 
has said that the " idea" of Gothic architecture is "weight annihi- 
lated," while that of the Greek is "weight properly supported"' 
(Rolfe). 

113-4-7. Proctor — Tutor — Master. See Appendix II. 

128. convention. It is a pity we do not make more use of this 
good form instead of the cumbrous ' conventionality.' Tennyson 
employs it later, however, in the ordinarily accepted sense. See IV. 
490 below. 

* 161. They lost their weeks. The candidate for the bachelor's 
degree at Cambridge must pass nine terms in actual residence, and in 
order to ' count ' each term, he must be present — at least at public 
dinner — for a certain number of weeks, usually about two-thirds of 
the whole number. Deans. See Appendix II. 

176. to read. The English University man says ' read ' where 
we say ' study; ' note that here they are ' reading ' mathematics. 
182. walks ; avenues of trees. 
199. solecisms. What is the exact force of the word here ? 



PART I. 

7. The weird conception of the possibility of being deprived of 
one's shadow was not uncommon in mediaeval Europe. The most 
noted bit of literature with this as its central motive is Chamisso's 
Peter Schlemihl. 

26. pedant. Cf . Shakespeare, ' like a pedant that keeps a school 



I.] NOTES. 159 

i' the church' {Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. ii. 80). Keep this char- 
acterization in mind, as we shall meet the king later. 

* 33. proxy-wedded. * Proxy marriages were not uncommon in 
the Middle Ages,' says Mr. Wallace, 'but the word "wedded" is 
here used loosely. "What really took place at this time was a "be- 
trothal," a ceremony that bound the parties to nothing, being dis- 
soluble at the will of either on attainment to years of discretion. 
It is noticeable that not elsewhere in the poem is the ceremony 
referred to as a marriage ; Gama speaks of it vaguely as " a compact 
... a kind of ceremony " (122-3 below) ; the Prince himself, though 
here he uses the expression " wedded," dare not in the presence of 
the Princess call it more than a " pre-contract " (III. 191) — nay, just 
below (40) he speaks of "wedding" as a necessary complement to 
the previous performance to constitute a perfect marriage — and the 
Princess is quite justified in scorning the idea that it was in any 
way binding upon her in the absence of her own consent — 

" baby troth, invalid, since my will 
Seal'd not the bond" (V. 388-9).' 

The rite of the bootless calf, i.e., the stripping of the calf of 
the leg by the representative of the bridegroom in the presence of the 
bride, belonged properly to the actual marriage by proxy, not to 
the betrothal. 

56. twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. No demonstration of 
the scientific accuracy of this simile can condone its prosaic awk- 
wardness. 

60. snow'd. For a similar transitive use of ' hail'd,' see Pro- 
logue, 155 above. 

65. cook'd his spleen. This phrase is probably an echo of 

Homer's ' enl v-qval x^^ov SvfJiaKyea necrcrei.,' Iliad, Bk. IV. 51. The 

Latin coquere was frequently used in a similar sense by Cicero 
and others. The ancients believed that the spleen was the seat of 
anger. 

* 78-80. It is a coincidence worth noting, in view of what follows, 
that Cyril's volunteering immediately follows the mention of the 
'lady of three castles.' 

93. dewy-tasselPd ; 'hung with catkins. It was springtime' 
(H. Tennyson). The poet used this adjective again in In Memo- 
riam, Ixxxvi. 6. 



160 NOTES. [PART 

96-9. A wind arose, etc. A rather remarkable similarity has 
been noticed between this passage and one in Shelley's Prometheus 
Unbound, — 

' A wind arose among the pines ; it shook 
The chnging music from their boughs, and then 
Low, sweet, faint sounds, hke the farewell of ghosts, 
Were heard ; " Oh follow, follow, follow me ! " ' 

See Tennyson's comment, Appendix I. 

110. blowing bosks of wilderness. ' Wilderness of blowing 
bosks' would be a more natural order in prose. 'Bosk,' and 'bos- 
cage' (a form which Tennyson uses more commonly), are of course 
akin to 'bush,' but bear a slightly different meaning. Be sure you 
get the sense of ' blowing ' in this connection. 

111. mother-city; a literal rendering of 'metropolis.' Else- 
where {In Memoriam, xcviii.), we find ' mother town' used with the 
same meaning. 

114-5. These two verses contain an unusually effective simile. 
Notice the superiority of the present form over the reading of the 
early editions: 

'But bland the smile that pucker'd up his cheeks.' 

* 116. Gama was not fond of military or regal insignia. But 
though he lacks imposing qualities, he is attractive as one of the 
few dramatically consistent characters of the story. 

129. Mr. Wallace offers an ingenious comment on husbandry: 
' Note the exquisite irony in the use of this word in connection with 
the central delusion of the Lady Ida.' 

134-5. knowledge ... all in all. This (rather than that sug- 
gested by the preceding note) was the really 'central delusion,' the 
undermining fallacy in the Princess's theory of life. 

167. Why was it a land of hope? 

* 170. the liberties ; the college grounds, in which the students 
were free to wander as they pleased. 

197-8. a sight to shake the midriff of despair with laugh- 
ter. Does this (purely Elizabethan) phrase complement the object, 
or the subject, of the sentence? 

* 213. ' On entering the gates, the disguised youths find the grounds 
and halls full of knick-knacks and kickshaws — 



ii.J NOTES. 161 



Clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
On silver anvils. 

Everywhere are busts, and statues, and lutes, and such-like bric- 
a-brac aids to knowledge, — promiscuously strewed about like blue 
china and crockery-ware bull-dogs in a modern drawing-room. In- 
stinctively the male reader shrinks through this part of the poem, 
fearful of upsetting something' (Dawson). 

218. her song. ' It is only the male bird which sings,' says 
Dawson. ' But the poets, all of them, keep the old Greek myth 
in mind, and while scientifically wrong, are poetically and histori- 
cally correct, for Philomela was a princess who was turned into a 
nightingale which sang.' The Eastern poets, it should be noted, 
use the masculine (see note on IV. 104 below), as does Tennyson 
himself in The Gardener's Daughter : 

' . . The nightingale 
Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day.' 

233-4. The classical student will find a simile very much like 
this in Homer, Iliad, Bk. II. 147-8. 

239. Uranian Venus. According to Plato, there were two god- 
desses called Aphrodite (Venus) ; the Heavenly and the Common. 
Cupid, the spirit of unenlightened passion, was the son of the Com- 
mon Venus. Why is the design of the seal an especially pertinent 
one, in view of the circumstances? 

244. A full sea glazed with muflaed moonlight, etc. See 
Tennyson's comment, Appendix I. 

SONG. 

* The song is here printed as it appeared in the fifth edition, with- 
out the intermediate quatrain, which seems to the present editor to 
mar the perfection of the little lyric : 

' And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
When we fall out with those we love 
And kiss again with tears.' 

PART II. 

8. that sang all round with laurel. Several critics have 

taken this to mean that the laurel was ' haunted by birds and bees.' 



162 NOTES. [part 

The suggestion of Hallam Tennyson seems more reasonable, as well 
as more obvious : that the poet had in mind simply the rustling of 
the laurel-leaves in the wind. 

10. Compact. Compare Shakespeare's 

' The lunatic, the lover, and the poet 
Are of imagination all compact.' 

boss'd with lengths of classic frieze. Cf. Milton, Paradise 
Lost, Bk. I. 716. 

38. your ideal; 'you as his ideal,' not 'his ideal (or idea) of 
you.' 

44. the child. This rather humorously recalls her father's re- 
mark in I. 1S6 above. 

48. cast and fling; a Shakespearean coupling of synonyms for 
emphasis which is not uncommon in Tennyson. See, for example, 
V. 210, below. 

* 60. enter'd on the boards. This is another Cambridge Uni- 
versity technicality ; there the register of undergraduates' names is 
officially known as 'the boards.' 

* 62-71. 'It is customary in English colleges,' says Mr. Wallace, 
* to adorn the Hall or some other public room with portraits or statues 
of famous past members of the establishment. The college of the 
poem has no past, and the statues are those of eight of the most 
eminent women of antiquity, representing respectively legislative 
sagacity, political enterprise, military prowess, architectural skill, 
physical courage, intellectual culture, imperial ambition, and wifely 
devotion.' 

Most of these names will need to be looked up in some classical 
dictionary. 

65. She that taught the Sabine, etc. The nymph Egeria was 
fabled to have been the teacher and guide of the lawgiver-king, 
Numa Pompilius. Be sure to read Byron's noble apostrophe, in 
Childe Harold, Canto IV. cxv-cxix. 

66. The foundress of the Babylonian wall ; Semiramis. 

68. Rhodope. Both Shakespeare and Landor give the name this 
form and accentuation. It is to be looked up, however, under Rho- 
ddpis (accented on the second syllable) . 

69-71. This sounding progress of names has a force and pomp 
almost Miltonic. 



II.] NOTES. 163 

69. Clelia was one of the Roman hostages given to Porsena. 
She escaped by swimming the Tiber on horseback. 

the Palniyrene; Zenobia. 

95. a double April old. Note that while the child's age is 
given here in terms of the spring month, Tennyson expresses that of 
Psyche in ' summers,' and (in The Palace of Art), that of Homer in 
'winters.' 

97-8. the dame that whisper'd, etc. See Smith's Classical 
Dictionary under Midas, and note that it was not the wife who 
told the secret. The traditional uncertainty as to the culprit is 
hinted at by Pope, in the Epistle to Arhuthnot : 

' 'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring 
(Midas, a sacred person and a king), 
His very minister who spied them first 
(Some say his queen) was forced to speak or burst.' 

* 101-4. These lines give a poetic summary of the ' nebular 
hypothesis.' 

106. the prime. Cf . In Memoriam, Ivi. : 

' Dragons of the prime, 
That tare each other in their slime.' 

Contrast with the meaning of ' prime ' in VI. 186 below. 

112. Appraised here means simply ' praised.' 

the Lyeian custom. Herodotus says that it was the custom 
among the Lycians to take the maternal name, and to trace the 
ancestry in the female line. 

113. lay at wine, etc. The Etruscan women were admitted to 
the banquet on equal terms with the men. Lar (or Lars) and Lu- 
cumo were Etruscan titles, corresponding approximately to the 
English ' Lord ' and ' Honorable.' 

117. A sufficient comment upon the laws Salique (or Salic) is 
to be found in Shakespeare, Henrij V., Act I. Sc. ii. 

118. toueh'd on Mahomet with much contempt. ' The slur- 
ring over of the name, by allotting to its three syllables the space of 
one only, is no doubt designed by the poet to accentuate the fair 
lecturer's contempt for the prophet ; for a similar effect see IV. 309 
below ' (Wallace) . Hallam Tennyson asks, ' Does she allude to a 
report once popular that Mahomet denied that women have souls, 



164 NOTES. [part 

or had she heard that, according to the Mohammedan doctrine, hell 
was chiefly peopled with womeil?' Perhaps she had in mind no 
more than the fact that the Mohammedan civil law permits polyg- 
amy as well as divorce at the will of the husband. 

144. Verulam. Lord Bacon. Cf . The Palace of Art : 

' And there the Ionian father of the rest ; 

A million wrinkles carved his skin ; 
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast, 
From cheek and throat and chin. 



And thro' the topmost Oriel's color'd flame 

Two godlike faces gazed below ; 
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam, 

The first of those who know.' 

168-70. This is only one of many passages in the poem in which 
an ingenious irregularity of metre serves to bring out the meaning 
more sharply. For like effects, see IV. 370, 461 ; VII. 210 below. 

* 180. softer Adams. Mr. Dawson interprets this as ' female 
founders.' Why not take it rather to be the simplest sort of ironical 
circumlocution for ' Eves,' and to refer in a vague way to the whole 
personnel of the college? 

The airy flippancy of Florian's opening remark has to be atoned 
for by a deal of straight-faced wheedling. 

177. HoAV saw you not, etc. The answer to this question is 
given in I. 210 above. 

224. bestrode my Grandsire. So Falstaff says: 'Hal, if thou 
see me down in the battle and bestride me, so ; 'tis a point of friend- 
ship ' (1 Henry IV., Act V. Sc. i). See also Comedy of Errors, Act 
V. Sc.i.: 

'When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took 
Deep scars to save thy life.' 

* 260-1. The astute Cyril here touches the right note. The soften- 
ing of Psyche is the first of those achievements the glory of which 
he is destined to share with the baby-heroine. 

269. secular. The word is contrasted with ' fading ' and ' mor- 
tal,' above, and is consequently used in its closely derivative 
meaning. 



III]. NOTES. 165 

273. O hard, when Love and Duty clash! Tennyson has 
developed this thought at length in the poem Love and Duty. 

319. Danaid. See Smith's Classical Dictionary, under Danaus ; 
or better, Brewer's Reader's Handbook, under Danalds. 

* 373-ill. This speech of Cyril's greatly excels in spirit and dra- 
matic force anything we have found thus far. The allusions to the 
embarrassments of ' stomacher ' and ' zone,' and the half-jesting 
madcap air of abandon, do not conceal the undercurrent of genuine 
feeling. The passage is worthy to be called Shakespearean. 

. 420. Astraean age. Look this up under Astraea. See also Vir- 
gil, Eclogues, IV. 6: 

'Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna.' 

* 4:3&-i2. their 3Iay was passing, etc. Some one has noted that 
here already the seeds of failure in the Princess's scheme are appar- 
ent. Without the direct interposition of the male element, failure 
must have been the result of an attempt essentially artificial. 

* 444-5. 3Ielissa . . . gentle satire. Keep this bit of description 
in mind, and note whether it is consistent with the other pictures of 
Melissa which are given in the course of the poem. 

SONG. 

dying moon. The third edition has * dropping moon ; ' which 
do you prefer? 

silver sails, etc. Notice how little the lack of grammatical con- 
nection between these two verses and the context affects the real 
feeling of the lyric. 

PART III. 

1-2. Cf. the following description in Love and Duty : 

'Then wlien the first low matin-chirp hath grown 
Full quire, and morning driven her plow of pearl 
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack 
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.' 

5. the Muses' heads. See II. 13 above. 

9. Shakespeare gives the adjective 'jDale' the same substantive 
meaning of 'pallor' that wan has here. 



166 NOTES. [PAET 

16. wont; a word (like canvass, 24 below) which has an un- 
usually interesting history. 

35. wholesale. Mr. Dawson calls this ' a very odd use of a 
modern mercantile word.' It is certainly not a dictionary use, but 
a striking instance of the value of emi^loying words with reference 
to their ' connotation.' 

55. They mounted, Ganymedes. See The Palace of Art : 

' , . . Flush'd Ganymede, his rosy tliigh 
Half buried in the Eagle's down, 
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 
Above the pillar'd town.' 

56. To tumble, Vulcans. Be sure to read the famous descrip- 
tion of the fall of Vulcan in Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. I. 740-6. Both 
of these myths should be looked up in the classical reference-books. 

68, 72, 75. still. Tennyson commonly gives this word the older 
meaning, ' continually ; ' the meaning in which it was used by Shake- 
speare and Milton. 

74. ' If there be in the same room two stringed instruments, a 
note struck on a chord of one will cause the corresponding chord in 
the other to vibrate. The metaphor thus denotes complete unison of 
heart and mind between the two, causing any emotion or interest in 
the one to find an immediate sympathetic response in the other' 
(Wallace). 

There is a similar use of 'shiver,' in Morte d 'Arthur: 

'A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars.' 

* 75. For yet my mother still, etc., the first two editions read: 
'only Lady Blanche;' a slip which is hardly needed, after lines 
68-74 (in which it is obviously the poet himself who is speaking), 
to prove that Tennyson has lost sight of Melissa. 

90. clang ... to the sphere ; call to the upper air. For this use 
of 'sphere,' compare Milton's: 'Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter 
of the Sphere.' (Conius, the song to Echo.) 

100. Look up the myth of Memnon, preferably in Brewer's 
Reader's Handbook. See also The Palace of Art, 171. 

106. the innumerable rose. Cf. V. 13 below. 

108. * Baluster, accented on the penult ; from French balustre, 
now corrupted into bannister' (Dawson). 



III.] NOTES. 167 

111. prime; primeval. So Shakespeare speaks of 'the prime 
creation.' See note on II. 106 above. 

120. fabled nothing fair. Contrast with another rare use of 
' fair ' in II. 305 above. 

126. limed; a common "word in Shakespeare and Milton. Look 
up its history. 

* 131. Cyril has already tried tlie mother's heart, and with 
success, in his plea to Psyche ; this time the ruse fails completely. 

153. talce the dip of certain strata ; measure their inclination 
with respect to the horizon. 

179. retinue; like 'revenue,' formerly accented on the second 
syllable. Here is an instance from Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. V. 
854-7: 

' More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits 
On princes, when their rich retinue long 
Of horses led and grooms besmeared with gold 
Dazzles the crowd.' 

* 203. As girls were once. Having expressed her extreme of 
contempt for the prince by calling him 'no better than a girl,' it 
suddenly occurs to her that this is a poor way of asserting the 
equality of woman with man, and she makes the best qualification 
she can at the moment. The passage is interesting because it sug- 
gests that the Princess all along instinctively held just the belief 
which is formulated by the Prince at the close of the poem. Her 
contempt for the man who is ' no better than a girl ' implies not that 
she confesses the inferiority of her sex, but that Love's 

' dearest bond is this. 
Not like to like, but like in difiference.' 

212-i. The student who is not familiar with the story of Vashti, 
should read the first chapter of the book of Esther. 

215. breathes full East. ' The metaphor may have been sug- 
gested by the preceding reference to the proud and defiant Oriental 
queen, but is derived from the bitter and blasting character of the 
east wind ' (Wallace). 

* 228. Love, children, happiness. The Prince's suggestion of 
the domestic ideal prepares the way for our first glimpse of the ami- 
able side of the Princess's character. 



168 NOTES. [PAET 

246. POU STO. It was Archimedes the mechanician who said, 

in praise of the lever: 6bs nov o-to), Kal Kovt^ov xtr^crw. — ' Give me a place 
to stand on, and I will pry the world.' 

269-70. against the pikes . . . down the fiery gulf. These 
two expressions, according to Mr. Wallace's conjecture, were not used 
vaguely: 'They were probahly suggested by two legends of ancient 
Rome: — (1) In the Latin War (b.c. 340) Publius Decius Mus, one of 
the Roman generals, sacrificed himself on the spears of the enemy 
in order to secure the victory to his army, it having been revealed 
to him in a vision from Heaven that one army was doomed and the 
general of the other (a somewhat similar act of devotion is recorded 
of Arnold von Winkelried in the battle of Sempach, 1388, during 
the Swiss struggle for independence against the Austrians; this 
hero, seeing that the Austrian line of spears was impregnable, gath- 
ered into his breast as many as he could, and falling upon them 
created a gap into which his comrades poured) ; (2) A chasm having 
appeared in the market-place of Rome, and the priests having de- 
clared that this would not close up until there had been cast into 
it the chief element of Rome's greatness, a young noble named 
Marcus Curtius, thinking that this condition would best be fulfilled 
by the sacrifice of one of her sons, leapt into it on horseback and in 
full armor (b.c. 362).' 

280. Dare we dream, etc. : Dare we dream that the Creator is 
a mere craftsman, to improve in skill by practice? 

* 282-7. The enthusiasm of the Princess for the study of meta- 
physics is merged for the moment in a pretty-womanly fondness for 
the golden trinket prize, and in childlike complacency over the apt- 
ness of the device. 

286. Diotima. There is a good note on this name in Brewer's 
Reader's Handbook. 

288. schools. The courses of instruction in English University 
parlance are ' schools.' 

311. make one act the phantom of succession; fancifully 
consider the single process of creation as if it were a series of acts. 

324. Elysian lawns . . . built to the sun. In disclaiming a 
fancied reference here to the towers of Troy, Tennyson wrote, ' The 
" Elysian lawns " are the lawns of Elysium, and have nothing to do 
with Troy — or perhaps they refer rather to the Islands of the Blest 
(Pindar, Olympia, 2d).' 



IV.] NOTES. 169 

The passage to •which he refers may be rendered freely : 

•There round the Islands of the Blest 
* The sea-born airs do breathe. There golden blooms 

Of summer glow, some from the hardy breast 
Of earth, on glorious boughs, some in the glooms 
Of silent waters : — these they twine 
In wreaths to deck their hands divine.' 

334. The bearded Victor, etc. It seems probable that Pindar's 
defeat was not an altogether inglorious one : ' Now of Corinna, the 
only woman who ever wrote poetry in Tanagra, there is a statue in 
an open place in the city, and in the gymnasium there is a picture 
showing her with the fillet round her hair which she won at Thebes, 
when she overcame Pindar in singing ; and I think she got the vic- 
tory partly because she sang not as Pindar did in the Dorian dialect, 
but so that the ^olians could more easily understand her, and chiefly 
because she must have been the most beautiful woman of her day, if 
one may judge from the portrait.' — Pausanias, ix. 22. 3. 

SONG. 

* This song, it is supposed, was inspired by the bugle-music of 
the boatmen at Lake Killarney. The first peal of the notes is loud 
and triumphant. The poet's mind is carried back by the martial 
sound and the distant sight of the ruined walls of Killarney Castle, 
to the far dim mediaeval past. The impression is intense, but fades 
quickly as the warlike strain dies away. The echoes now suggest 
the silver tinkle of elfin horns, and for a moment the eerie charm of 
fairyland holds the listener. These too die, and with the silence 
comes the swift lyric turn from the visions of exhausted feudalism 
and of fruitless superstition to the clear certain life of the present 
and of the future. That life is to bring the gradual union of his 
nature with that of his beloved ; to be full of the gentle enduring 
influences which, like echoes, 'roll from soul to soul,' but, unlike 
echoes, * grow forever and forever. ' 

PART IV. 

2. that hypothesis ; the * nebular hypothesis ' which has been 
already summarized by Lady Psyche. 

17. gold. Rolfe remarks, * Of course gold is an adjective refer- 



170 NOTES. [PAET 

ring to wine;' while Wallace says: 'gold, i.e. golden goblets and 
other vessels.' Which meaning seems to you the more probable? 
21-40. ' The idea of this lyric had been resting in the poet's mind 
since 1831. Then at the age of twenty-two he published in The Gem, 
one of the annuals at that time in fashion, the following poem omitted 
from all the recent editions of his works : 

sad Xo more! O sweet No more! 

O strange Xo more.' 
By a mossed brookbank on a stone 

1 smelt a wildwood flower alone ; 
There was a ringing in my ears, 

And both my eyes gushed out with tears, 
Surely all pleasant things had gone before, 
Low-buried fathom-deep beneath with thee, 
Xo more.' 

The melancholy melody of the refrain 'No more,' has evidently 
haunted the poet's mind, and he has taken the poem which he 
justly suppressed as unworthy of him, and after long years repro- 
duced it in this glorified form' (Dawson). 

' One of my family remembers,' writes Mrs. Ritchie, * hearing Ten- 
nyson say that "Tears, idle tears " was suggested by Tintern Abbey: 
who shall say by what mysterious wonder of beauty and regret, by 
what sense of the "transient with the abiding"?' 

47. cram our ears, as Odysseus did {Odyssey, Bk. VI). 

60. beard-blown. See Appendix I. 

61. hang on the shaft. Keep his doubtful footing on some 
ruined column. 

69. a death's head at the wine. The allusion is to the fabled 
Egyptian practice of carrying round the circle of feasters a death's 
head or a cofl&n, by way of pointing the moral 'Eat, drink, and 
be merry, for to-morrow ye die.' 

97. Fly to her and pipe and woo her. Professor Hadley has 
cited this as an illustration of Tennyson's habit of ' blending a final 
vowel with an initial weak consonant easily elided in pronunciation.' 
For a similar effect, see 81 above. 

* This lyric and the ' Tears, idle tears ' are the best of Tennyson's 
imitations of the 'isometric songs' of Theocritus; songs which, 
retaining the metrical form of the surrounding narrative, triumph 



IV.] NOTES. 171 

through sheer perfection of rhythmic feeling, so that the ear hardly 
notices even the absence of rhyme. 

100. Like the Ithacensian suitors. Mr. Dawson says: 'The 
suitors at the court of Penelope feel the occult influence of the 
unseen goddess Pallas causing their thoughts to wander. They 
fail to recognize Ulysses in his disguise, and their laughter is con- 
strained and unnatural, they know not why. They laugh with alien 
lips, which is the nearest possible poetical translation of the Greek 
idiomatic expression, " They laughed with other men's jaws " ' (oi S' ijSrj 

yvadixolai yekwoiv dAXorpioiacv, Odl/SSey, Bk. XX. 347). 

104. Bulbul. ' The Persian name of the nightingale, whose love 
for the rose is a favorite theme with Saadi and his brother poets. 
Gulistan is Persian for rose-garden, and S^adi takes it as the title of 
his book of poems ' (Rolfe). 

Note in this passage the use of the contemptuous ' thee.' 
121. ValkjTian. The ValkjTs ('choosers of the slain'), accord- 
ing to the Northern Mythology, were warrior-maidens who presided 
over the field of battle, and carried slain heroes to Valhalla, the 
'palace of immortal delight.' The Princess's ideal of poetry is 
evidently typified in her song of triumph (VI. 17-42 below). 

130. owed. "What is the meaning in this connection? 

131. to leaven play with profit. Recreation does not mean 
idleness to this woman-scholar. Here she hopes for the musical ren- 
dering of some bit of folk-lore — anthropographical data, she might 
have said, — but is hardly prepared for the 'local color' of Cyril's 
'careless, careless tavern-catch.' 

* 148-52. The flight of the Princess is probably due rather to an 
impulse to avoid the contamination of the male presence, than to 
actual fear. It is perhaps a little odd that the Head should not have 
caused the intenders to be arrested at this moment. Surely she 
could not have gone upon this expedition without a guard of some 
sort. — Is Melissa warning the men or the women to ' flee the death ' ? 

* 159. she miss'd the plank. The poet has plenty of authority 
for pitching his heroine into the river at this juncture. Obviously, 
according to the established canons of romance, the rescue of the Prin- 
cess is now in order. Only in this way, indeed, can the incident of 
Cyril's song be turned from catastrophe into crisis, and the Prince be 
restored to a working chance of gaining her favor. 

160. from glo"w to gloom. The evening glow from the West 



172 NOTES. [PAET 

still touched the bridge, while the channel beneath was in darkness. 
* Glow to gloom ' reminds us of Browning's favorite contrast of ' shade 
and shine.' 

162. the horrible fall. See III. 273 above. 

162-7. * Notice how the broken movement of these lines, the short 
sharp sentences, the irregular metre, and the harsh dominance of 
monosyllables, accentuate the strain, the struggle, and the anxiety of 
the action narrated ' (Dawson) . 

163. -woman-vested as I was, plunged. This is a rather evi- 
dent reminiscence of Cassius's 

'Accoutred as I was, I plunged in.' 

Julius Csesar, Act I. Sc. 11. 

An even closer parallel metrically is to be found in V. 472-3 below. 

166. The weight of all the hopes, etc. A similar passage has 
been noted in the Roman poet Statins, in which the baby Apollo is 
pictured as crawling along the edge of Delos, and by the weight 
of his divinity actually tipping the island. 

185. the hunter; Actseon. Look up the myth, if you are not 
familiar with it. 

195. Thro' a great arc. The constellation of the Great Bear 
(also known as the Great Dipper and Charles's Wain) does not 
set, but describes an arc about the North Star, fading only with 
the dawn. 

3D0. out of rules. See Appendix II. 

* 203. a moral leper, I. The sensitive Florian is blameless him- 
self, yet he feels the taint of Cyril's coarseness. This, with his lack 
of the Prince's saving sense of humor and his anxiety for the wel- 
fare of Psyche and Melissa, leads him to take a tragic view of the 
situation. 

207. Judith . . . Holofernes. See Brewer's Reader's Hand- 
book, or better, the apocryphal book of Judith. 

217-20. Alas, for our budding admiration for the Princess. The 
spectacle of her unwomanly, not to say vulgar, fury, which turns 
itself, for lack of some more responsible victim, against the baby- 
heroine, is hard to forget. 

236. as the water-lily, etc. A similar use of this figure has 
been noted in Wordsworth, The Excursion, Bk. V. : 



IV.] NOTES. 173 

' a thing 
Subject, you deem, to vital accidents ; 
And, like the -water-lily, lives and thrives. 
Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head 
Floats on the tossing waves ' 

In commenting on the parallel, Mr. Dawson said, 'Wordsworth's is 
the more familiar picture.' This called forth the remark by Tenny- 
son in Appendix I. 

* 241. He, standing still, was clutched. The solemn Florian 
surrenders without a thought of escape: hut the Prince is seized 
by a sudden whimsical impulse, not so much to get away, as to 
' breathe the Proctors ' a little. 

242. musky-circled. Cf. Milton, Comws ; 

* And west winds with musky wing 
About the cedarn alleys fling 
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.' 

255. the mystic fire, etc. Cf. Longfellow, The Golden Legend : 

'Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars, 
"With their glimmering lanterns, all at play 
On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars. 
And I knew Ave should have foul weather to-day.' 

* 257. BoTv'd toward her, combing, etc. The impressiveness of 
the royal audience must have been somewhat marred by this process 
of the toilet. The succeeding description of the ' eight daughters of 
the plow,' on the other hand, is quite in keeping with the idea of 
judicial grandeur. 

* 266-8. Again there is the unpleasant suggestion of wilful mal- 
treatment of the innocent child. It must be noted, however, that her 
presence is dramatically necessary to the scene. 

275. Castalies ; sources of culture. See classical reference-books 
under Castalia. 

296. Jonah's gourd. See, if necessary, Jonah, iv. 

311. grace. Look up the history and the many interesting mean- 
ings of this word (and of use, 317 below). 

338. real ; a dissyllable here, as it is commonly in Shakespeare. 

* 340-3. The Princess is admirable in her summary dismissal of 
Lady Blanche. She shows perfect self-command, and a really royal 



174 NOTES. [part 

dignity of decision. But as for her adoption of the child — what shall 
we say was her principal motive : a mere feeling of compassion for 
the deserted baby, a natural longing for child-companionship, or a 
settled purpose to establish by her complaisance a permanent right to 
Psyche's little daughter, and so to attain her subtlest revenge upon 
Psyche herself ? 

352. Niobean. Look this up in some classical dictionary under 
Niohe. 

366-7. When the wild peasant, etc. ' Referring to the incen- 
diary fires so common in the trouble with the English agricultural 
laborers some years before the poem was written ' (Rolfe). 

370. Note how closely the irregularity of the metre corresponds 
with the vehemence of the Princess's mood. 

* 404-48. This gallant outburst of the Prince contains some real 
eloquence of the young-lover sort, with a touch of obsequiousness 
here and there which is not inexcusable under the circumstances. 

418. Sphered up, etc. Milton in a similar phrase calls Cassiopeia 
'that starred Etliiop queen' {II Penseroso, 19). 

422. frequence. Cf. Milton, Paradise Regained, Bk. I. 128-9: 

' . . . The Most High ... In full frequence bright 
Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake.' 

426. landskip. This is the older form of the word. The ending 
* skip ' is a variant of ' ship ' (as in towns/up) ; the word means prop- 
erly, therefore, a tract of land. 

427. The dwarfs of presage. Cf . ' less than fame,' I. 72 above. 

* 454-68. * It must be borne in mind,' says Mr. Wallace, * that 
this scene took place after midnight. The Princess is sitting in judg- 
ment in the Hall, but the greater number of the girls are outside in 
the quadrangle, which is illuminated by the lights of the Hall 
streaming through the windows.' 

461. Fluctuated, etc. This verse, which seems at first to be a 
hexameter, may be read with only five accented syllables by throw- 
ing the second accent upon ' flowers ' : 

Fluctuated as flowers in storm, some r^d, some pdle. 

For the accentuation of ' fluctuated,' see note on Prologue, 90 above. 
523. should lord you. Shakespeare has a much more startling 
figure, in Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. iii. : 



v.] NOTES. 175 

'This old man 
Loved me above the measure of a father, 
Nay, godded me, indeed.' 

531-2. See note on 166 above. 

INTERLUDE. 

SOXG. 

* Mark what a rousing note of straightforward energy Lilia puts 
into the little song ; which points the transition from the foregoing 
' raillery or grotesque or false sublime ' to a genuine seriousness 
of motive and depth of feeling in the subsequent narrative. 

An earlier version was this: 

'Lady, let the rolling drums 
Beat to battle where thy warrior stands. 
Now thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands. 

Lady, let the trumpets blow, 
Clasp thy little babes about thy knee : 
Now their warrior father meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee.' 

Why is the present form better ? 

This interlude was one of the many improvements which appeared 
in the third edition of the poem. Like most of the other additions, 
it was inserted for the purpose of bringing out more clearly the seri- 
ous meaning of the work, which the public had failed to find in the 
original version. From this time on the forces of the poem converge 
steadily toward the final triumph of wedded love. The interest 
becomes more and more centred in the two principal characters; 
they show less and less of weak whimsy and false ambition, and 
the scene of their final union is so perfect in its feeling that we 
fairly forget the burlesque and strain of the earlier episodes. 

PART V. 

2. a stationary voice. For the meaning of 'stationary' Mr. 
Dawson refers us to the post-classical Latin stationarii milites, and 
the French soldats stationnaires. 



176 NOTi:S. [part 

* 4. *The second two.' Who were the first two, and how long 
before had they probably passed the sentries ? 

13. the innumerous leaf. Cf . Milton, Comus : 

' In the close dungeon of innumerous boughs.' 

21. the gilded Squire. Evidently Tennyson attributes to this 
type the same characteristics as are to be found in Chaucer's descrip- 
tion of the 'yong Squyer,' in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. 

25. mawkin. This word is used by Shakespeare in such phrases 
as ' the swineherd's malkin,' ' the kitchen malkin,' etc. Be sure to 
look up its derivation, 

37. transient; used here participially, with the exact meaning 
of the Latin transiens. 

42. And hit the northern hills; a startling conclusion to a 
somewhat violent, but notably suggestive, figure of speech. 

46. Amazed; an older use of the word: bewildered, like one in 
a maze. 

74. Why kept ye not your faith? See II. 275-80 above. 

* 7T. for your child. Here again Cyril connects himself some- 
what cunningly with the mother's thought of her child. 

* 79-102. One almost regrets that the mother's feeling did not 
express itself in the lyric form (the two opening lines suggest such 
a treatment), rather than in the present quasi -dramatic fashion. 

93-96. For a strikingly similar passage, see Shakespeare, 
Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. v. 287-95. 

121. the trampled year; a figurative use somewhat like that 
of * clime and age,' Prologue, 16 above. 

125. lightens scorn. Cf. II, 117 above. 

131-2. dash'd your cities, etc. Line 133 in the first two editions 
read, 'And dusted down your domes with mangonels,' Do you see 
any reason for the poet's discarding it in later editions? 

162. a cherry net. ' Fruit trees in England are commonly pro- 
tected by light nets against the depredations of birds ' (Wallace). 

181-4. truer to the law within. Cf. In Memoriam, xxxiii. : 

' Her faith thro' form is pure as thine. 
Her hands are quicker unto good : 
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
To which she links a truth divine ! 



v.] NOTES. 177 

See thou, that countest reason ripe 

In lioldiug by the law within, 

Thou fail not in a world of sin, 
And even for want of such a type.' 

188. pure as lines of green. Rolfe notes that this is ' another 
illustration of the poet's keen observation of nature. Most writers 
would have taken the white of the snowdrop as the emblem of 
purity (as Tennyson himself does in St. Agnes, 11), but that delicate 
green seems more exquisitely pure, even beside the white.' 

190. What is the force of piebald here ? 

231. oozed. There ife a similar use of the word in Sea Dreams : 

'And then began to bloat himself and ooze 
All over with the fat affectionate smile 
That makes the widow lean.' 

250. the airy Giant; Orion. Look up the myth in the classical 
reference-books. The constellation is one of the most easily identi- 
fied in the winter heavens, on account of the prominence of the 
' three stars ' which form the ' zone.' What is the force of ' airy ' in 
this passage ? 

252-4. Much the same figure is used in Homer, Iliad, Bk. V. 5. 
The passage is rendered by Lord Derby as follows : 

' Forth from his helm and shield a fiery light 
There flash'd, like Autumn's Star, that brightest shines 
When newly risen from his ocean bath.' 

The phrase wash'd with morning finds also a parallel in Brown- 
ing, Old Pictures in Florence : 

' Washed by the morning water-gold 
Floi'ence lay out on the mountain-side, 

River and bridge and street and square 
Lay mine, as much at my beck and call 

Thro' the live translucent bath of air 
As the sights in a magic crystal ball.' 

284. St. something. ' St. Catherine of Alexandria, the Cather- 
ine usually painted with a wheel, or with a book, or disputing with 
philosophers. The patron saint of philosophy, the daughter of King 



178 NOTES. [part 

Costis. Costis married Sabinella, Queen of Egypt, and on her death 
Catherine became Queen. She devoted herself to learning, and 
would not marry, but was espoused in a vision to Jesus Christ. [Em- 
peror] Maxentius sent fifty of the wisest philosophers to convert her, 
but she converted them. Unable to kill her with the wheel, Maxen- 
tius cut off her head, and the angels carried her body to heaven ' 
(Dawson). 

325. Strangely enough, life here has precisely the meaning of 
'death' in 157 above. 

332. They made him wild; a touch of oddly colloquial humor. 

355. Tomyris. Herodotus tells the story of Tomyris, Queen of the 
Massagetae. When she heard that Cyrus was meditating an expedi- 
tion into her territories, she sent him a formal remonstrance. ' Hav- 
ing solemnly warned him to desist, she at last gave him battle. He 
was slain on the field, and she then took his head and dipping it in 
a skin of blood bade him, since he was so bloodthirsty, drink his fill 
therefrom' (Wallace). 

358. the lists were hammer'd up. The manner of arranging 
the lists is described fully in the eighth chapter of Scott's Ivanhoe. 

367-373. The presentation by the bride of a whip to her future 
husband is an old Russian custom. The allusions which follow are 
of course to the Hindoo customs of burning widows on the funeral 
pyre of their husbands,, and of casting female children into the 
Ganges (as things of no use, perhaps, rather than as objects of 
'prophetic pity' ). 

382. gallant institutes; fine regulations. 

412. orbs ; forms a part of the prb of the earth. 
*414:. This womanish postscript to a sounding peroration recalls 
the whimsical episode of the prize brooch. 

419. mellay ; an Anglicized form of the French melee. 

500. Miriam . . . Jael. See Exodus, xv. ; Judges, iv. 

SONG. 

* In 1865 Tennyson published another version of the song : 

' Home they brought him slain with spears, 
They brought him home at even fall ; 
All alone she sits and hears 
Echoes in the empty hall, 
Sounding on the morrow. 



VI.] NOTES, 179 



The sun peeped in from open field, 
The boy began to leap and prance, 

Kode upon his father's lance, 
Beat upon his father's shield : 
Oh hush, my joy, my sorrow.' 

'The new rendering,' says Mr. Waugh, 'has a charm*of its own 
from a certain allusiveness and vagueness of suggestion which are 
more artistic than the fullest detail. The removal of the face-cloth 
and the strategy of the nurse are unrecorded. Only, the child plays 
with his father's lance and shield, and in his game reminds her of 
her loss. Then with an outburst of grief she reproves him : 

" Oh hush, my joy, my sorrow ! " 

There is a suddenness of pathos here which is irresistible. This ver- 
sion was many years afterward published with a musical setting by 
Lady Tennyson.' 

Mr. Dawson calls the song an ' unconscious imitation ' of a pas- 
sage in Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. It is probably 
a safer criticism to call it an interesting parallel. 



PART VI. 

16. that great dame of Lapidoth; Deborah. See Judges, iv. 
and V. 

47. Blanch'd. Compare the employment of the word here with 
the use of the Latin albus in the sense of propitious. 

48. the golden year. Ohe of Tennyson's dominant thoughts is 
expressed in the poem called The Golden Year: 

' We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ; 
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun : 
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse, 
And human things returning on themselves 
Move onward, leading up the golden year. 



But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
Lie like a shaft of light across the land. 
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
Thro' all the circle of the golden year?' 



180 NOTES. [PAKT 

62-3. by them went the enamor'd air, etc. This is another 
purely Elizabethan conceit. 

65. tremulous isles of light. See Appendix I. 
69. timorously. ' The word occupies in the metre of the line 
the place of one foot only, the resolution of which into four short 
syllables that must be hurriedly pronounced indicates the timidity 
and nervousness with which the girls approach the ghastly scene ' 
(Wallace). 

126. on tremble; atremble. Remember that the prefix a- in such 
words as 'asleep,' 'afoot,' 'aboard,' 'alive,' is merely a contraction 
of 'on.' 

129-30. hollow w^atch . . . Red grief. Notice how powerfully 
the meaning is condensed in these figurative touches. 
186. in the dead prime. Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I. Sc. ii: 

'In the dead Avaste and middle of the night.' 

234-9. There are in Shakespeare two similar descriptions of close 
friendship between women : in As You Like It, Act I. Sc. iii ; and 
in Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III. Sc. ii. 

* 266-77. Previous to this scene what strength the Princess pos- 
sessed has seemed to be of a masculine sort. From this point on her 
natural strength of womanly sweetness and nobility becomes more 
and more evident, as the hard aggressiveness and self-confidence 
gradually fade from view. 

287-90. Still another flawless bit of Elizabethan workmanship. 

* 314-22. In the early editions this speech was about four times 
as long as in its present form, and contained much of the rhetoric 
which the reader has long ago learned to expect from her Highness. 
The final version is far superior in compactness, dignity, and dra- 
matic power. 

319. The Pharos. This was a famous lighthouse built on the 
island of Pharos, near Alexandria, by Ptolemy Philadelphus (about 
250 B.C.). 

338. In heraldry the supporters are the figures which flank the 
central shield of a coat of arms; as, for example, in the arms of 
Great Britain. 

355. due. Cf. IV. 123 above. 
* 361. those held sagest. Note that in the event their wisdom 



VII.] MOTES. 181 

turns out to be of the sort which is celebrated in the following 
song. 

SONG. 

* 'Notice the predominance in this song of monosyllables,' says 
Mr. Wallace. ' Of the 125 words which it contains, only seven have 
more than one syllable, and these only two. This feature imparts a 
peculiar stateliness to the composition, emphasizing the solemnity 
of its tone without impairing its melody. . . . This peculiar mourn- 
ful and reserved tone is strikingly noticeable in such of Shake- 
speare's sonnets as are constructed after the monosyllabic type.' 

No critical comment seems necessary upon this perfect lyric of 
absolute womanly surrender. 

PART VII. 
* 19. void "was her use. Cf . Aylmej^'s Field : 

' the gentle creature shut from all 
Her charitable use.' 

This, like most genuinely poetic expressions, loses force in pro- 
portion as it gains explicitness, when it is turned into prose. Her 
life was empty of its usual occupations, and she had as yet found 
nothing to take their place. Her being was already stirred by the 
inward pleading of emotions which she had abjured ; but she had no 
thought, as yet, of laying aside her practical aims. 

21. sees a great black cloud, etc. See Appendix I. 

81-97. Of these seventeen verses only three do not begin with 
'And.' What is the effect of this monotonous structure? 

98. flourished up. Look up the literal meaning of 'flourish,' 
and cf. II. 292 above. 

100-1. In the opinion of the present editor, this is by far the most 
beautiful simile in the poem. 

108-11. The Oppian law, enacted when Hannibal was approach- 
ing the gates of Rome, ordered that women should not wear bright- 
colored robes, or own more than half an ounce of gold ornaments, or 
drive in or near Rome. When the war was finished, and the neces- 
sity for economy no longer pressing, the women demanded that the 
law be repealed. One of the two consuls agreed, but Cato refused, 



182 WOTES. [part 

whereupon ' the ■women rose, thronged the streets and forum, and 
harassed the magistrates until the law was repealed.' 

112. Hortensia, daughter of the orator Hortensius, spoke suc- 
cessfully against a tax which had been imposed by the triumvirate 
which succeeded Julius Csesar, upon the wealthy Roman matrons. 

* 120 — From this point until the end, as the narrative changes to 
what may be called a series of monologues, — always a favorite mode 
of expression with Tennyson, — we find a more even excellence than 
in any other portion of the main poem. 

147-8. mood; spirit: mould; physical form: that other; 
Aphrodite. If you are not familiar with the story of the birth 
of Aphrodite, look it up in the classical reference-books. 

189. horns; Alpine peaks. Cf. Matter/ior/i. Explain the ex- 
pression ' walk with Death and Morning.' 

205-7. A bewilderingly melodious passage, whose technical merit 
equals that of Keats at his best. 

198. water-smoke. So Tennyson writes, in The Lotos-Eaters : 

'And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the chfif to pause and fall did seem.' 

199. like a broken purpose. * To illustrate the material by the 
immaterial is rare in figurative language ' (Rolfe). 

229. the Signs. Consult a dictionary under Zodiac. 
245. out of Lethe; here, simply * out of oblivion,' i.e., from the 
moment of birth. 

* 248. Stays all the fair young planet, etc. : \Yoman, the poet 
says, holds the fate of this still childish, but gradually developing 
world of men. 

* 259-79. In these lines the fallacy, not narrowly of the ' woman's 
rights ' doctrine, but in a broad sense of all efforts to ignore or annul 
the difference in natural endowment of man and woman, is clearly 
exposed. 

295. besotted in sweet self; a phrase which comes dangerously 
near the affectation of which Tennyson has been so often accused. 
301-8. Cf. Wordsworth, * She was a phantom of delight ' : 

'A creature not too bright or good 
For human nature's daily food ; 
For transient sorrows, simple wiles. 
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 



VII.] NOTES. 183 

A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A Traveller between life and death ; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 
A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, to command; 
And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
With something of angelic light.' 

311. comes easy; an odd colloquialism to find in so serious a 
context. 

EPILOGUE. 

24. realists. The use of the word here is quite different from 
that which it commonly has with us ; the meaning is clear, however, 
from the connection. 

64. our own, i.e., 'the fantastic serio-comic tale we have just 
been telling.' 

73-4. maybe wUdest dreams are but the needful preludes, 
etc. Cf . Love and Duty : 

' Shall Error in the round of time 
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout 
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself 
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law, 
System, and empire? Sin itself be found 
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?' 

76-7. This fine old world, etc. The poet's prophecy of hetter 
times to come has already been quoted in the note on VI. 48 above. 
87. pine; pineapples. 



APPENDIX I. 



[This letter was written by Tennyson to Mr. S. E. Dawson, soon after 
the publication of Mr. Dawson's monograph, ' A Study of The Princess.' 
This ' excellent little book,' says Dr. Van Dyke, ' was the occasion of draw- 
ing from Tennyson a letter, which seems to me one of the most valuable, 
as it is certainly one of the longest, pieces of prose that he has ever given 
to the public.'] 

Aldworth, Haslemere, 
Surrey, Nov. 21st, 1882. 

Dear Sir, — I thank you for your able and thoughtful essay 
on The Princess. You have seen, amongst other things, that if 
women ever were to play such freaks the burlesque and the tragic 
might go hand-in-hand. 

I may tell you that the songs were not an afterthought. 
Before the first edition came out I deliberated with myself 
whether I should put songs in between the separate divisions 
of the poem — again, I thought, the poem will explain itself, 
but the public did not see that the child, as you say, was the 
heroine of the piece, and at last I conquered my laziness and 
inserted them. You would be still more certain that the child 
was the true heroine if, instead of the first song as it now stands, 

'As thro' the land at eve we went' 

I had printed the first song which I wrote. 

The losing of the child. 

The child is sitting on the bank of a river, and playing with 
flowers — a flood comes down — a dam has been broken thro' — 
the child is borne down by the flood — the whole village dis- 

185 



186 APPENDIX I. 

tracted — after a time the flood has subsided — the child is 
thrown safe and sound again upon the bank and all the women 
are in raptures. I quite forget the words of the ballad, but I 
think I may have it somewhere. 

Your explanatory notes are very much to the purpose, and 
I do not object to your finding parallelisms. They must always 
recur. A man (a Chinese scholar) some time ago wrote to me 
saying that in an unknown, untranslated Chinese poem there 
were two whole lines of mine, almost word for word. Why not ? 
are not human eyes all over the world looking at the same ob- 
jects, and must there not consequently be coincidences of thought 
and impressions and expressions ? It is scarcely possible for any 
one to say or write anything in this late time of the world to 
which, in the rest of the literature of the world, a parallel could 
not somewhere be found. But when you say that this passage 
or that was suggested by Wordsworth or Shelley or another, I 
demur, and more, I wholly disagree. There was a period in my 
life when, as an artist, Turner for instance, takes rough sketches 
of landskip, <§:c., in order to work them eventually into some 
great picture, so I was in the habit of chronicling, in four or 
five words or more, whatever might strike me as picturesque 
in nature. I never put these down, and many and many a 
line has gone away on the north wind, but some remain, e.g. : 

'A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight.' 

Suggestion : 
The sea one night at Torquay, when Torquay was the most 
lovely sea-village in England, tho' now a smoky town. The sky 
was covered with thin vapour, and the moon was behind it. 

*A great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deep.' 

Suggestion : 
A coming storm seen from the top of Snowdon. In the Idyls 
of the King 



APPENDIX I. 187 

'with all 
Its stormy crests that smote against the skies.' 

Suggestion : 
A storm which came upon us in the middle of the North Sea. 
'As the water-lily starts and slides.' 
Suggestion : 
Water-lilies in my own pond, seen on a gasty day with my 
own eyes. They did start and slide in the sudden puffs of wind, 
till caught and stayed by the tether of their own stalks — quite as 
true as Wordsworth's simile and more in detail. 

'A wild wind shook — 

follow, follow, thou shalt win.' 

Suggestion : 
I was walking in the Xew Forest. A wind did arise and — 

' Shake the songs the whispers and the shrieks 
Of the wild wood together.' 

The wind, I believe, was a west-wind but, because I wished the 
Prince to go south, I turned the wind to the south and, naturally, 
the wind said ' follow.' I believe the resemblance which you 
note is just a chance one. Shelley's lines are not familiar to me, 
tlio', of course, if they occur in the Prometheus, I must have 
read them. 

I could multiply instances, but I will not bore you, and far 
indeed am I from asserting that books, as well as nature, are not, 
and ought not to be, suggestive to the poet. I am sure that 
I myself, and many others, find a peculiar charm in those pas- 
sages of such great masters as Virgil or Milton where they adopt 
the creation of a bye-gone poet, and re-clothe it, more or less, 
according to their own fancy. But there is, I fear, a prosaic 
set growing up among us, editors of booklets, bookworms, index- 
hunters, or men of great memories and no imagination, who 
impute themselves to the poet, and so believe that he, too, has no 



188 APPENDIX I. 

imagination, but is forever poking his nose between the pages of 
some old volume in order to see what he can appropriate. They 
will not allow one to say ' Ring the bells,' without finding that we 
have taken it from Sir P. Sydney — or even to use such a simple ex- 
pression as the ocean ' roars ' without finding out the precise verse 
in Homer or Horace from which we have plagiarised it (fact!). 

I have known an old fish-wife, who had lost two sons at sea, 
clench her fist at the advancing tide on a stormy day and cry out 
— ' Ay ! roar, do ! how I hates to see thee show thy white teeth ! ' 
Now if I had adopted her exclamation and put it into the mouth 
of some old woman in one of my poems, I daresay the critics 
would have thought it original enough, but would most likely 
have advised me to go to Nature for my old women and not to 
my own imagination; and indeed it is a strong figure. 

Here is another little anecdote about suggestion. When I was 
about twenty or twenty-one I went on a tour to the Pyrenees. 
Lying among these mountains before a waterfall that comes 
down one thousand or twelve hundred feet I sketched it (accord- 
ing to my custom then) in these words — 

'Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn.' 

When I printed this a critic informed me that ' lawn ' was 
the material used in theatres to imitate a waterfall, and graciously 
added ' Mr. T. should not go to the boards of a theatre but to 
Nature herself for his suggestions.' —And I had gone to Nature 
herself. 

I think it is a moot point whether — if I had known how that 
effect was produced on the stage — I should have ventured to 
publish the line. 

I find that I have written, quite contrary to my custom, a let- 
ter, when I had merely intended to thank you for your interest- 
ing commentary. 

Thanking you again for it, I beg you to believe me 

Very faithfully yours, 

A. Tennyson, 



APPENDIX I. 189 

P.S. By-the-bye, you are wrong about 'the tremulous isles 
of light ' : they are ' isles of light,' spots of sunshine coming 
through the leaves, and seeming to slide from one to the other, 
as the procession of girls 'moves under shade.'' 

And surely the ' beard-blown ' goat involves a sense of the 
wind blowing the beard on the height of the ruined pillar. 



190 APPENDIX II. 



APPENDIX II. 



[The following facts about Cambridge University and ber colleges will 
serve to explain several alUisions in the Prologue, as well as many hints in 
the body of the narrative as to the constitution of the Princess's establish- 
ment. They are taken from ' The Student's Guide to the University of 
Cambridge' (Geo. Bell, London, 1880]. 



The Colleges are foundations established and endowed at 
different times by private munificence to secure a studious leis- 
ure to learned men, and education to the young. They are of 
later date than the University itself, but have in process of time 
grown into an intimate union with it. For a considerable time 
it was impossible to be a student of the University without being 
a member of some College. ... At present every Undergradu- 
ate is admitted either as the member of some College, or as a 
ISTon-Collegiate student. The colleges are seventeen in number, 
and differ from each other in innumerable details. . . . Every 
College has a Head, who is generally called Master, but some- 
times Provost or President. The student has few personal deal- 
ings with him. He performs the ceremony of scholarships and 
fellowships, and grave cases of misconduct are referred to him. 
Then come the body of Fellows, out of whom and by whom the 
Master is, in most cases, chosen. These are graduates of the 
University in receipt of annuities arising from the founder's 
bequest, and in possession of other privileges defined by stat- 
utes. . . . 

The Fellows with the Master constitute the governing body in 
most Colleges, though in some the work is in the hands of a sec- 
tion of this body. But the superintendent of the work of educa- 
tion in the College, and the authority to whom the students look 



APPENDIX II. 191 

up, is the Tutor. There is one or more of sucli officers in every 
College, and in addition to the duty of lecturing in the College, 
which he commonly shares with others, the Tutor's function is 
to maintain discipline and control over all within the College 
who are in statu piipillari. The Tutor is generally a Fellow, 
and to aid in the work of instruction other Fellows or other 
graduates are generally appointed with the title of Assistant 
Tutors, whose business it is to lecture and enforce attendance at 
their own lectures, and possibly in some degree to concern them- 
selves with the general discipline of the Undergraduates. Be- 
sides holding authority, the Tutor is a guardian and adviser to 
the Undergraduates, and it is to him that the student should go 
in any difficulty that may arise. 

Besides the Tutors, Deans are appointed from the number of 
the Fellows, who are charged to provide for the celebration of 
Divine Service daily in the College Chapel, and in some cases to 
enforce the attendance of the students. In the more important 
colleges, the Deans also share with the Tutors the general super- 
vision of the conduct of the students, especially in taking care 
that proper hom-s are observed for returning home at night. . . . 
The University [by way of supplement to the discipline of the 
several colleges] maintains discipline among its students, i.e., 
among all its members below the degree of Master in some 
faculty, by means of Proctors. These officers are two in number, 
annually elected, Masters of Arts or Laws, of three years' stand- 
ing at the least, or Bachelors of Divinity. It is part of their duty 
to watch over the behavior of the students, and, to assist them 
in this, four Pro-proctors are annually appointed. They inflict 
fines on those students whom they find abroad after dark with- 
out cap and gown, and for graver offences they can inflict graver 
penalties. They are attended by servants, who act as a kind of 
University Police. Every Undergraduate or Bachelor is bound to 
state to the Proctor or Pro-proctor, when called upon, his name 
and College. The penalties inflicted at Cambridge are fines, con- 
finement within the lodging-house or within the walls of the 



192 APPENDIX II. 

College in the evening, rustication (dismissal from the Univer- 
sity for one or more terms or part of a term, which of course 
entails a prolongation of the time of undergraduateship), and 
expulsion from the University. . . . 

The Undergraduates of a college may be divided into the 
classes of Scholars, Pensioners, Fellow-commoners and Sizars. 
Noblemen may enter as a separate class, but few, if any, do so ; 
and the class of Fellow-commoners is no longer an important 
one. 

The Scholars are students Avho receive an annuity from the 
College, and enjoy besides certain exemptions varying at the 
different Colleges. Scholarships are given in reward of merit, 
and it is the first ambition of a student to win this distinction. 
. . . The ordinary student of a College, who pays for every- 
thing, and enjoys no exemptions, is called a Pensioner, i.e., a 
boarder. Slzarships consist of certain emoluments and exemp- 
tions given to students in consideration of poverty as well as 
merit. The Sizar must of course occupy a position of inferiority, 
as one avowedly poor in the company of richer men ; but on the 
other hand the very avowal of his poverty secures him from 
many temptations. 

The duties commonly exacted by a College from its students 
are attendance at Chapel and at lectures, and at the dinner in 
the College Hall. At some Colleges those who do not attend 
Chapel regularly will receive warnings from the Dean, and after 
repeated warnings will be in danger of punishment, i.e., being 
deprived of the liberty of passing the College gates, or the outer 
door of lodgings, during some hours before they are closed for 
the rest of the students. . . . There is a public dinner in the 
hall of every College every day. Grace before meat is read com- 
monly by the Scholars, and after meat by Scholars or the senior 
Fellow present. 

. . . Some persons prefer lodgings to rooms in College. They 
have one practical advantage, viz., that in them, as in lodging- 
houses anywhere else, the servants can be summoned at any 



APPENDIX 11. 193 



time, whereas in College rooms there are no bells, and the ser- 
vants, who go by the names of gyps and bedmake^^s, are not 
constantly on the staircase, but make their rounds at fixed hours. 
On the other hand, so far from there being greater liberty m 
lod-in-s as might be supposed, there is somewhat less, tor the 
lock which the lodging-house keeper is bound to turn at nme 
or ten o'clock, confines you to the house itself, whereas the clos- 
ing of the College gate at the same hour leaves to those withm 
liberty to range the whole College. 

Amon- the first and most indispensable steps to be taken after 
entering,'ls the purchasing of a cap and gown. Each College has 
its own pattern for the gown worn by its Undergraduates; for 
Non-Collegiate students also a distinct pattern is prescribed. 
The proper gown, with the cap, will be furnished by the Univer- 
sity tailor The cap and gown constitute the academic dress, 
and are to be used on all occasions when a student acts in the 
character of a member of the University or College ; on all public 
occasions . • at all University or College lectures, at the pub- 
lic dinner in the College Hall, and generally at the College 
Chapel At Chapel, instead of the gown, a surplice is worn on 
Sunday, on Saturday evening, on all Saints' days, and at the even- 
in- service of the day before every Saint's day. For the sake of 
discipline, the cap and gown are required to be worn by all stu- 
dents appearing in the streets in the evening, and throughout 
the whole of Sunday. These rules are strictly maintained. 



LITERATURE. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



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English Literature. 



Painter's Introduction to English Literature, includ- 
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By Professor F. V. N. Painter, of Roanoke College, Va. Cloth. 
Pages xviii-f-628. Introduction and mailing price, $1.25. 

Morgan's English and American Literature. 

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A practical working text- book for schools and colleges. Pages viii-f- 
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LITERATURE. 



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Scott's Marmion 35 

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